BARBARIANS OF
SUPER-POWER
They
were strange people, those inhabitants of Earth 12,000 years after the Galactic
War. They possessed the power of the atom, they had real space-ships, but they
did not understand how they worked and they did not know the elementary
principles of science. But the strangest among them was the young man, Clane,
mutant son of the ruling family.
Clane should have been destroyed—for that was
the rule for such freaks. But when he miraculously survived, it was to be the
start of a chain reaction of super-scientific miracles that would either
remold the solar system on a higher scale or reduce it once again to utter
barbarism.
A.
E. van Vogt has produced a thrilling novel of the far future, geared to marvels
and keyed to high adventure.
Turn this book over for second complete novel
A.
E. VAN VOGT is
rightfully regarded as one of the great masters of modern science-fiction.
Establishing a new pace for brilliancy of narration and a
new high mark for originality of concept, each of his books has been recognized
as an imaginative classic. Born in Winnipeg, Canada, in 1912, he is now a
resident of Los Angeles where he has been active in the exploration of new
fields of mental science. Still available in Ace Book editions are his novels:
THE
UNIVERSE MAKER (D-31) THE WORLD OF NULL-A (D-31) THE WEAPON SHOPS OF ISHER
(D-53) ONE AGAINST ETERNITY (D- 94) THE PAWNS OF NULL-A (D-187)
Empire of the Atom
by
A. E. VAN VOGT
ACE BOOKS A
Division of A. A. Wyn, Inc.
23 West
47th Street, New York 36, N. Y.
empire of
the atom
Copyright ©, 1956, by A. E. van Vogt
An Ace Book, by arrangement with the author.
Abridged Edition
Empire
of the Atom is
partially based upon material originally published in Astounding Science
Fiction, and copyrighted, 1946, 1947, by Street & Smith Publication, Inc.
To
Milo O. Frank
space station" 1
Copyright ©, 1957, by A. A. Wyn, Inc.
Printed in U. S. A
junior scientists stood at the bell ropes all day, ready to
sound forth the tidings of an important birth. By night, they were exchanging
differing opinions as to the possible reason for the delay.
The
expected child had actually been born a few hours after dawn. He was a weak and
sickly fellow, and he showed certain characteristics that brought immediate dismay
to the Leader household. His mother, Lady Tarda, when she wakened, listened for
a while to his piteous crying, then commented acidly: "Who frightened the
little wretch? He seems already afraid of life."
Scientist
Joquin, in charge of the delivery, considered her words an ill omen. He had not
intended to let her see the monstrosity until the following day, but now it
seemed to him that he must act swiftly to avert calamity. He hurriedly sent a
dozen slave women to wheel in the carriage, ordering them to group around it in
close formation to ward off any malignant radiation that might be in the
bedroom.
Lady
Tania was lying, her slim body propped up in bed, when the astonishing
procession started to squeeze through the door. She watched it with a frown of
amazement and then the beginning of alarm. She was not a soft spoken creature,
and even the presence of a scientist in the room did not restrain her.
She said violently, "What is going on
here, Joquin?"
Joquin
fluttered his head at her in distress. Did she not realize that every
ill-tempered word spoken at this period only doomed the child to further
disasters? He noted,
5
startled,
that she was parting her hps to speak again— and, with a slight prayer to the
atom gods, he took his life in his hands.
He
took three swift strides towards the bed, and clapped his palm over her mouth.
As he had expected, the woman was so astounded by the action that she did not
immediately resist. By the time she recovered, and began to struggle weakly,
the carriage was being tilted. And over his arm, she had her first glimpse of
the baby.
The
gathering storm faded from her blue eyes. After a moment, Joquin gently removed
his hand from her mouth, and slowly retreated beyond the carriage. He stood
there, quailing with the thought of what he had done, but gradually, as no
verbal lightning struck at him from the bed, his sense of righteousness
reasserted itself. He began to glow inwardly, and ever
afterwards claimed that what he had done saved the situation as much as it
could be saved.
The
woman was looking at the child more intently now. And Joquin, briefly, looked
at her. He was surprised to realize how much he had not previously let himself
see, but had simply glanced at in a scanning fashion. His new impression was
even worse than it had been. The child had a big head for its frail body. Its
shoulders and arms were the major visible deformity. The shoulders sloped down
from the neck at a steep angle, making the body appear almost triangular. The
arms seemed "twisted, as if the bone—and the muscle and skin with it—had
been given a full turn. It seemed as if each arm needed to unwind in order to
be right. The boy's chest was extremely flat, and all the ribs showed through
the stretched skin. The rib cage spred out in a web of bone
that extended down too far for normalcy.
That
was all. But it was evidently enough, for the Lady Tania swallowed visibly.
Joquin,
switching his gaze to her, said hurriedly, "This is the worst stage, Lady.
Frequently, the result after a few months or years is
reasonably—satisfactory."
He had almost said "human." He was
aware of her gaze swinging towards him. He waited uneasily, but all she said
finally was, "Has the Lord Leader, the child's grandfather, been
in?"
Joquin
inclined his head. "The Lord Leader saw the baby a few minutes after it
was born. His only comment was to the effect that I should ascertain from you,
if possible, when you were affected."
She
did not reply immediately, but her eyes narrowed even more. Her thin face grew
hard, then harsh. She looked up at the scientist at last. "I suppose you
know," she said, "that only negligence at one of the temples could be
responsible."
Joquin
had already thought of that, but now he looked at her uneasily. Nothing had
ever been done about previous "children of the gods," but it had been
growing on him that the Linns at least regarded this a
special case. He said slowly, "The atom gods are inscrutable."
The
woman seemed not to hear. Her cold voice went on, "The child will have to
be destroyed, I suppose. But you may be sure that, within a month, there will
be compensatory stretching of scientific necks such as the world has not seen
in a generation."
She
was not a pleasant person when aroused, the Lady Tania Linn, daughter-in-law of
the Lord Leader.
It
proved easy to trace the source of the mutation. The previous summer, Tania,
tiring of a holiday on one of the family's west coast estates, returned to the
capital before she was expected. Her husband, General-of-the-Realm Creg Linn,
was having extensive alterations made to the Hill Palace. No invitation was
forthcoming from her sister at the other end of the city, or from her
stepmother-in-law, the stately wife of the Lord Leader. Tania, perforce, moved
into an apartment in the Town Palace.
This
assortment of buildings, though still maintained by the state, had not been
used as a residence for several years. The city had grown immense since it was
built, and long since the commercial houses had crowded around it. Due to a
lack of foresight, by an earlier generation, title had not been taken to the
lands surrounding the palace, and it had always been deemed unwise to seize
them by force. There was one particularly annoying aspect of the failure to
realize the profitable potentialities of the area. This was the scientists'
temple that towered in the shelter of one wing of the palace. It had caused the
Lady Tania no end of heartache the previous summer. On taking up residence, she
discovered that the only habitable apartment was on the temple side, and that
the three most beautiful plate windows faced directly on the blank lead walls
of the temple.
The
scientist who had built the temple was a member of the Raheinl group, hostile
to the Linns. It had titillated the whole city when the site was made known.
The fact that three acres of ground were available made the affront more
obvious. It still rankled.
The
agents of the Lord Leader discovered at the first investigation that one small
area of the lead wall of the temple was radioactive. They were unable to
determine the reason for the activity, because the wall at that point was of
the required thickness. But the fact was what they reported to their master.
Before midnight of the second day after the child was born, the decision was in
the making.
Shortly before twelve, Scientist Joquin was
called in and told the trend of events. Once more he took his life in his
hands. "Leader," he said, addressing the great man direct, "this
is grave error into which your natural irritation is directing you. The
scientists are a group, who, having full control of atomic
energy dispensation, have developed an independent attitude of mind,
which will not take kindly to punishments for accidental crimes. My advice is,
leave the boy alive and consult with the scientists' council. I will advise
them to remove the temple of their own volition, and I feel sure they will
agree."
Having spoken, Joquin glanced at the faces
before him. And realized that he had made a mistake in his
initial assumption. There were two men and three women in the room. The
men were the grave, lean Lord Leader and the plumpish Lord Tews, who was Lady
Lydia's only son by her first marriage. Lord Tews was acting
General-of-the-Realm in the absence of Lord Creg, Tania's husband, who was away
fighting the Venusians on Venus.
The
women present were the Lady Tania, who was still in bed, her sister, Chrosone,
and the Lord Leader's wife, Lydia, who was stepmother-in-law to the two younger
women. The Lady Tania and her sister were not on speaking terms, but they did
maintain an indirect communication through Lord Tews. That individual managed
his liaison role with an easy intelligence and—at least so it seemed to
Joquin—genuine enjoyment.
Hopefully,
Joquin watched the Lady Lydia, seeking in her face and attitude some indication
of her purpose. He regarded her as a woman of enormous evil potential. Because
of her, the pattern of behavior of the Linn family had radically altered. A
handsome, middle-aged woman, with well-formed features, she was more dangerous
than anything that crawled. Gradually, as the cunning pattern of her intrigue
had spread octopus-like through the government, each person affected had in
his own way learned how to deal with it. Counter-intrigues, schemes, constant
vigilance, consciousness of unknown danger that might threaten or strike at any
time—this had been the price. The sustained strain had hurt the Linn family.
The poison was in them now, also. Tense and nervous, unhappy and vindictive,
they were here in this room, their thoughts hidden but their motives
predictable, and all because of the older woman.
Nevertheless,
it was to the Lord Leader's wife that Joquin looked for a clue as to the
finality of the decisions that had been made. Tall, thin, remarkably well
preserved, she was the prime mover for destruction. If she had an opinion
—and
she always had an opinion—she would already have been
working behind the scene. If she had managed to persuade her compromise-minded
husband to take this specific action, then the stage was set for disaster.
Even
as he divined from their manner that they had called him for psychological
reasons only, Joquin forced himself to assume that he was being consulted. The
pretense was hard to maintain. He had the impression that they listened to his
statement, as a matter of going through a form, but that actually little attention
was paid to his words. Lord Tews glanced at his mother, a faint smile on his
plumpish face. She half-lowered her eyelids, as if to hide the thoughts that
were there. The two sisters remained frozen-faced, staring at Joquin. The Lord
Leader ended the tension by nodding a dismissal to the scientist.
Joquin
went out, quivering. He had the wild idea that he would send a warning to the
endangered temple scientists. But he quickly abandoned that as hopeless. No
message from him would be allowed out of the palace. He retired, finally, but
he was unable to sleep. In the morning, the fearful rescript that he had
visualized all through the night was posted on the military board, for all to
read. Joquin blinked at it palely. It was simple and without qualification.
It
commanded that every scientist of the Raheinl temple was to be hanged before
dusk. The property was ordered seized, and the buildings razed to the ground.
The three acres of temple ground were to be converted into a park.
It
did not say that the park was to be added to the Town Palace of the Linns,
though this later turned out to be the fact. The rescript was signed in the
firm hand of the Lord Leader himself. Reading it, Joquin recognized that a
declaration of war had been made against the power of the temple scientists.
the scientist Alden was not a man who had premonitions. And
certainly he had none as he walked slowly along towards the Raheinl temple.
The morning glowed around him. The sun was out. A gentle breeze blew along
the Avenue of Palms which stalked in stately fashion past his new home. His
mind was the usual cozy kaleidoscope of happy reminiscences, and a quiet joy
that a simple country scientist had in only ten years become the chief
scientist of the Raheinl temple.
There was but one tiny flaw in that memory,
and that was the real reason for his swift promotions. More than eleven years
ago, he had remarked to another junior that, since the gods of the atom had
yielded certain secrets of mechanical power to human beings, it might be
worthwhile to cajole them by experimental methods into revealing others. And
that, after all, there might be a grain of truth in the vague legends about
cities and planets ablaze with atomic power and light. Alden shuddered
involuntarily at the brief remembrance. It was only gradually that he realized
the extent of his blasphemy. And when the other junior coolly informed him the
following day that he had told the chief scientist—that had seemed like the end
of all his hopes.
Surprisingly, it turned out to be the
beginning of a new phase in his career. Within a month he was called for his
first private conversation with a visiting scientist, Joquin, who lived in the
palace of the Linns. "It is our policy," Joquin said, "to
encourage young men whose thoughts do not move entirely in a groove. We know
that radical ideas are common to young people, and that, as a man grows
older, he
attains a balance between his inward self and the requirements of the world. In
other words," the scientist finished, smiling at the junior, "have
your thoughts but keep them to yourself."
It
was shortly after this that Alden was posted to the east coast. From there, a
year later, he went to the capital. As he grew older, and gained more power, he
discovered that radicalism among the young men was much rarer than Joquin had
implied. The years of ascendancy brought awareness of the foolishness of what
he had said. At the same time, he felt a certain pride in the words, a feeling
that they made him "different" from, and so
superior to, the other scientists. As chief, he discovered that radicalism was
the sole yardstick by which his superiors judged a candidate for promotion.
Only those recommendations which included an account of unusual thinking on the
part of the aspirant, however slight the variance from the norm, were ever
acted upon. The limitation had one happy effect. In the beginning, his wife,
anxious to be the power behind the power at the temple, declared herself the
sole arbiter as to who would be named for promotion. The young temple poets
visited her when Alden was not around, and read their songs to her privately.
When
they discovered that her promises meant nothing, their visits ceased. Alden had
peace in his home, and a wife suddenly become considerably more affectionate .
. .
His
reverie ended for there was a crowd ahead, and cries and murmurs that had an
unpleasant sound to them. He saw that people were swarming around the Raheinl
temple. Alden thought blankly, "An accident?" He hurried forward,
pushing through the outer fringes of the throng. He felt abrupt rage at the way
individuals resisted his advance. Didn't they realize that he was a chief
scientist? He saw mounted palace guardsmen urging their horses along the edge
of the crowd a few score feet away, and he had his mouth open to call on them
to assist him, when he saw something that stopped his words in his throat. His
attention had been on the temple proper. In his endeavor to move, his gaze
flicked over the surrounding park.
Five
of Rosamind's young poets were hanging from a tree limb at the edge of the
temple grounds farthest from the temple. From a stouter tree nearby, six juniors
and three scientists were still kicking spasmodically. As Alden stood
paralyzed, a dreadful screaming came from four initiates whose necks were just
being fitted with rope halters. The screaming ended, as the wagon on which they
were standing was pulled from under them.
Scientist
Alden tottered through the crowd before the Raheinl temple on legs that seemed
made of dough. He bumped into people, and staggered like a drunken man, but he
was only dimly aware of bis gyrations. If he had been
the only person in the group reacting, he would have been marked instantly, and
dragged off to the gibbet. But the executions caught the throng by surprise.
Each new spectator casually approaching to see what was going on suffered his
own variation of tremendous shock. Women fainted. Several men were sick and
others stood with glazed eyes.
As
he approached one trailing end of the crowd, he was able to think again in
flashes of insight. He saw an open gate; and he had darted through it, and was
floating— that was the new sensation in his legs—through the underbrush, when
it struck him that he was inside the grounds of the Town palace of Lord and
Lady Creg Linn.
That
brought the most terrible moment of the morning. Trapped, and of his own doing. He collapsed in the shelter of an
ornamental shrub, and lay in a half faint of fright. Slowly, he grew aware that
there was a long, low outhouse ahead, and that trees would shelter him most of
the way. He recognized that he could not safely hope to return the way he had
come, nor dared he remain where he was. He rose shakily to his feet, and the
gods were with him. For he found himself shortly crouching in
the long, narrow, hay storeroom adjoining the stables.
It
was not a good hiding place. Its width was prohibitively confining, and only
by making a tunnel in the hay near the door farthest from the stables did he
manage to conceal himself. He had barely settled down when one of the stable
doors a dozen feet to his right opened. A four-pronged fork flashed in a
leisurely fashion, and withdrew transporting a bundle of hay. With a casual
kick, the stablehand slammed the door shut, and there was the sound of
retreating footsteps. Alden lay, scarcely breathing. He was just beginning to
emerge from his bunk, when, bang! another
door opened, and another fork gathered its hay, and departed.
Despite
the nervous shocks, by noon his mind had almost resumed functioning. He had his
first theory as to why he had escaped the round-up that had caught the others.
Only two weeks before, he had moved to his new residence on the Avenue of
Palms. The soldiers must have proceeded to his old address, and then had to
cross the city to his new home, with the result that he had left the house by
the time they arrived.
Of such tenuous fabrics the patterns of his
escape were woven. Alden shivered, and then, slowly, anger built up inside him,
the deadly, gathering anger of a man wrongly persecuted. It was a fury that
braced him for eventualities, and he was able at last to think with clear-cut
logic of what he must do. Obviously, he could not remain within the grounds of
the Town palace. Odd little memories came to his aid, things he had observed in
earlier years without being aware that he did so. He recalled that every few
nights hay ricks turned into the palace gates. Judging by the emptiness around
him, a new supply must be almost due. He must leave before the afternoon was
out.
He
began to struggle along the line of hay to the right. There was a gate on that
side, and he remembered having once glimpsed the stables through it while
taking a walk. By sneaking out of the end door and around the side of the
stable, and then through that gate—
If only he could find another set of clothes— Surely, there would be work
clothes hanging up in the stables, preferably, in view of the long hair that
scientists affected, a woman's overdress—
He
found what he wanted in the right end of the stable, which was devoted to milk
cows. The animals and he were quite alone while he arrayed himself in the
raiment that the milkmaids pulled over their pretty dresses when they did their
chores.
The
Town Palace, after its brief flurry the year before as a Linn residence, had
reverted swiftly to its role of agricultural, industrial and clerical center.
There were guards within sight of the gate, but they did not bother to question
a rather stocky woman slave, who went out with a decisive manner as if she had
been sent on an errand by a superior.
It
was late afternoon when Alden approached the Covis temple from the rear. He
grew jittery as its leaden walls loomed up before him. His fear was that at
this moment when safety was in sight, something would happen. He knocked
timidly on one of the small back entrances, and waited, trembling.
The
door opened suddenly; but he was so tense that he responded instandy, and
stepped past the astonished junior who was there, into the shadows of the unlit
corridor.
Not
until he had jerked the door from the other's grip, and closed it—so that they
stood in almost total darkness-did Alden reveal his identity to the startled
young man.
3
medron linn, the Lord Leader, walked along a street of
the city of Linn. His ventures into the town had become rarer in recent years,
but as in the past he felt both interested and excited. As always he had a
specific purpose. Only thus could he justify to himself the time and effort
involved.
He
had his normal quota of guards with him, but they were specially trained for
these private wanderings; and so like soldiers on leave they made their way
behind him or ahead of him as if they had no interest in the lean, pale,
flint-faced man whose lightest command was law on Earth and on portions of
several planets.
The
Lord Leader sought out the most densely populated market areas, with their
bright wares. The sight of so much color reminded him of his younger days, when
all this part of the city had been drab and unpainted, and the craftsmanship
behind each product low-grade. The traders had grumbled and raged when, in the
early days of his power, he had decreed that the choice locations would be
available only to those who were willing to paint them and maintain them, and
who were willing to carry only better quality goods. It was a forgotten crisis.
Under the stress of competition, the gaily decorated buildings had inspired an
improvement in the appearance of all the stalls; and the superior quality of
the merchandise sold had brought about a considerable increase in variety as
well.
The
Lord Leader Linn had to force his way among the throngs of buyers and sellers.
The markets Were crowded with people from the hills
and from across the lake, and there was the usual pack of wide-eyed primitives
from the other planets. At no time during the afternoon was it difficult to
start a conversation.
He
talked only to people who showed no sign of recognizing as their ruler the
unshaven man in the uniform of a private soldier. It didn't take long to
realize that the thousand persuasive men he had sent out to argue his side of
the hangings were doing yeoman service. No less than seven approached him, and
he permitted three of these to engage him in conversation. All three made
skillful propaganda remarks. And the five farmers, three merchants and two
laborers to whom he talked, subsequently answered his rough criticism of the
Lord Leader with pro-government catch phrases they could only have heard from
his own men.
It
was gratifying, he told himself, that the first crisis he had forced was
turning out so well. The Linnan empire was only a
generation out of the protracted civil war that had brought the Linn family to
a secure leadership. His tax collectors were still finding the returns lean.
One of the reasons was the financial drain on the country by the temples. The
scientists had the people in a thrall which— it seemed
to the Lord Leader—could not possibly have any counterpart in history. Certain
temple rise were hypnotic in nature, and there were
trained men to suggest the exact amount of the contribution desired. Thousands
of women, particularly, were so caught by such devices that it was necessary
for the temples themselves to urge restraint upon them, lest they give all
their possessions. The men, being often at war, were not so obsessed. Upon this
vast income, the temples maintained a horde of scientists, seniors, juniors,
and initiates. So enormous was this temple army that almost every family had at
least one relative who was "studying" to become a scientist.
It
had seemed to the Lord Leader—and he had not really needed Lydia to point it
out—that an attempt must be made to break the hypnotic dominance involved.
Until that happened, the strain on the economy would continue, and prosperity
and wealth would only grow at a rninimum rate. Trade
had revived in Linn itself, but it was making much slower recovery in other
cities, which were not favored by special exemptions.
Several wars of conquest were under way,
three of them on Venus against the Venusian tribes. The goal of unification of
the solar system, which he had set himself, required that those expeditions be
maintained, regardless of cost. Something—it seemed to the Lord Leader—had to
be sacrificed. Something big. He had selected the
temples, as the only real rivals to the government in terms of their total
annual income.
The
Lord Leader paused before the open air shop of a dealer in ceramics. The man
had the Linnan cast of feature and was obviously a citizen, or he wouldn't be
in business. Only the opinions of the citizens mattered. This one was in the
throes of making a sale. While he waited, the Lord Leader thought again of the
temples. It seemed clear that the scientists had never recovered the prestige
they had lost during the civil war. With a few exceptions they had supported
Raheinl until the very day that he was captured and killed. The scientists
promptly and collectively offered an oath of allegiance to the new regime, and
he was not firmly enough entrenched in power to refuse. He never forgot,
however, that their virtual monopoly of atomic energy had nearly re-established
the corrupt republic. And that, if they had succeeded, it was
he who would have been executed.
The
merchant's sale fell through. He walked over grumpily to his potential new
customer but at that moment the Lord Leader noticed a passerby had paused, and was
staring at him with half recognition. The Lord Leader without a word to the
merchant turned hastily, and hurried along the street into the gathering dusk.
The
members of the Scientists Council were waiting for him when, satisfied that his
position was unassailable, he returned finally to the palace.
It
was not an easygoing gathering. Only six of the seven members of the council of
scientists were present. The seventh, the poet and historian, Kourain, was ill,
so Joquin reported,
with fever. Actually, he
had suffered an attack of acute caution on hearing of the hangings that
morning, and had hastily set out on a tour of distant temples.
Of
the six, at least three showed by their expressions that they did not expect to
emerge alive from the palace. The remaining three were Mempis, recorder of
wars, a bold, white-haired old man of nearly eighty; Teear, the logician, the
wizard of arithmetic, who, it was said, had received some of his information
about complicated numbers from the gods themselves; and, finally, there was
Joquin, the persuader, who, for years, had acted as liaison between the temple
hierarchy and the government.
The
Lord Leader surveyed his audience with a jaundiced eye. The years of success
had given him a sardonic mien, that even sculptors could
not eradicate from his statues without threatening the resemblance between the
referent and the reality. He was about fifty years old at this time, and actually in remarkably good health despite his
thinness. He began with a cold, considered and devastating attack on the
Raheinl temple. He finished that phase of his speech with: "Tomorrow, I go
before the Patronate to justify my action against the temple. I am assuming
that they will accept my explanation."
For
the first time, then, he smiled, bleakly. No one knew better than he or his
audience that the slavish Patron-ate dared not even blink in a political sense
without his permission. "I am assuming it," he went on, "because
it is my intention simultaneously to present a spontaneous petition from the
temples for a reorganization."
The
hitherto silent spectators stirred. The three death-expecting members looked up
with a vague hope on their faces. One of the three, middle-aged Horo, said eagerly, "Your excellency can count on us
for—" He stopped because Mempis was glaring at him, his slate-blue eyes
raging. He subsided, but gradually his courage returned. He had made his point.
The Lord Leader must know that he was
willing. He experienced the tremendous inner easing of a man who had managed to
save his own skin.
Joquin
was saying suavely, "As Horo was about to state, we shall be happy to give
your words a respectful hearing."
The
Lord Leader smiled grimly. But now he had reached the crucial part of his
speech, and he reverted to legalistic preciseness. The government—he said—was
prepared at last to split the temples into four separate groups as had been so
long desired by the scientists. (This was the first they had heard of the plan,
but no one said anything.) As the scientists had long urged, the Lord Leader
went on, it was ridiculous that the four atom gods, Uranium, Plutonium, Radium
and Ecks should be worshiped in the same temples. Accordingly, the scientists
would divide themselves into four separate organizations splitting the
available temples evenly among the four groups.
Each
group would give itself to the worship of only one god and his attributes,
though naturally they would continue to perform their practical functions of
supplying transmuted god-power to all who sought to purchase it under the
government regulations. Each group would be headed, not by a council of equals
as was the temple system at present, but by a leader for whom an appropripate
title must be selected. The four separate temple leaders would be selected for
life by a joint committee of government and temple delegates.
There
was more, but they were details. The council had its ultimatum. And Joquin at
least cherished no illusions. Four temple groups, fighting for adherents, each
ruled by a willful scientist, responsible to no one except perhaps the Lord
Leader, would end forever any hopes the more enlightened scientists
entertained. He personally regarded the temples as the repositories of
learning, and he had his own dreams as to the role the temples might play at
some future time. He rose now hastily, lest one of the fearful councilors
should speak first. He said gravely, "The council will be very happy to
consider your offer, and feels itself privileged to have in the government a
lord who devotes his obviously valuable time to thoughts about the welfare of
the temples. Nothing could—"
He had not really expected to manage a
postponement. And he didn't. He was cut off. The Lord Leader said with
finality, "Since I am personally making the announcement in the Patronate
chamber tomorrow, the Scientists Council is cordially invited to remain in the
palace to discuss details of reorganization. I have assumed this will require
anywhere from a week to a month, or even longer, and I have had apartments
assigned for your use."
He
clapped his hands. Doors opened. Palace guards came in. The Lord Leader said,
"Show these honored gentlemen to their quarters."
Thus was the council imprisoned.
On
the fourth day, the baby was still alive. The main reason was that Tania could
not make up her mind. The truth was that, in spite of innumerable
disadvantages, she could imagine certain uses for a son whom the gods had
molded in their peculiar fashion. And in this regard, the urgings of Joquin
were not without their effect. Joquin spent most of the fourth morning on the
subject.
"It
is a mistake," he said, "to assume that all the children of the gods
are idiots. That is an idle talk of the witless mob, which pursues these poor
creatures along the street. They are not given an opportunity for education,
and they are constantly under pressures so great that it is little wonder few
of them ever attain the dignity and sense of mature development." His
arguments took on a more personal flavor. "After all," he said,
softly, "he is a Linn. At worst, you can make of him a trustworthy aide,
who will not have the same tendency to wander off to live his own life as will
your normal children. By keeping him discreetly in the background you might
acquire that best of all possible slaves, a devoted son."
Joquin
knew when to stop pressing. The moment he noticed from the thoughtful narrowing
of the woman's eyes that his arguments were weighing with her, he decided to
leave her to resolve the doubts that still remained. He withdrew smoothly, and
attended the morning court of the Lord Leader—and there once more urged his
suit.
The
great man's eyes were watchful as Joquin talked. Gradually, his satiric
countenance grew puzzled. The Lord Leader interrupted at last. "Old
man," he said curtly, "what is your purpose in thus defending the
right to life of a freak?"
Joquin
had several reasons, one of them almost purely personal, and another because he
believed that the continued existence of the baby might, however slightly, be an advantage to the temples. The.
logic of that was simple. The baby's birth had
precipitated a crisis. Its death would merely affirm that
crisis. Conversely, if it remained alive, the reason for the ferocious reaction
of the Linns would be negated to some small degree.
He
had no intention of stating that particular reason,
and he did not immediately mention his personal hope about the baby. He said
instead, "Never before has a child of the gods been deliberately put to
death. It was always assumed the gods had their own obscure purpose in creating
monsters in human form. Do we dare test at this time that such is or is not the
situation?"
It
was an argument that made the other man stare in
astonishment. The wars the Lord Leader had fought had thrown him into contact
with advanced thinkers and skeptics on several planets, and he had come to
regard the gods as a means of keeping his rebellious subjects under control. He
did not totally doubt their existence but he was skeptical about their
supernatural powers. "Do you really believe what you're saying?" he
asked.
The
question made Joquin uncomfortable for there was a time in his life when he had believed nothing. Slowly, however, he had
been half convinced that the mighty invisible force given forth by the tiniest
radioactive substance could have no other explanation. He said carefully:
"In my travels as a young man, I saw primitive tribes that worshipped
rain gods, river gods, tree gods and various animal gods. And I saw more
advanced races, some of them here on Earth, whose deity was an invisible
omnipotent being who lives somewhere in space in a place called heaven. All
these things I observed, and in a similar fashion I listened to each group's
particular account of the beginning of the
Universe. One
story has it that we all came from the mouth of a snake. I have seen no such
snake. Another story is that a great flood deluged the planets, though how this
could have been done with the available water, I do not know. A third story is
that man was created from clay and woman from man."
He
looked at his hearer. The Lord Leader nodded. "Continue."
"I
have seen people who worshipped fire, and I have seen people who worshipped
water. And then, as have so many others before me, I finally visited the
valleys where our own gods are said to dwell. I discovered their residences on
every planet, vast, desolate areas miles deep and miles long and wide. And in
these areas, I saw from a safe distance behind lead embankments the
incredible bright fires that still burn with unending fury in those fantastic
deeps of Earth.
"'Truly,'
I thought to myself, 'the gods, Uranium, Radium, Plutonium and Ecks are the
most powerful gods in the Universe. Surely,' I decided, 'no one in his right
senses would do anvthing to offend them.'"
The
Lord Leader, who had also examined some of the homes of the gods in the course
of his peregrinations, said only, "Hm-m-ml"
He
had no time for further comment. From somewhere —it seemed terribly near—there
was a sharp sound louder than the loudest thunder that had ever bellowed from
the skies. It was followed, half a minute later, by a roar so loud, so furious, that the palace floor trembled.
There
was a pregnant pause, not silent. From all directions came the sound of
windows shattering with a thousand tinkling overtones. And then, that
disturbance was overwhelmed by a third explosion, followed almost instantly by
a fourth.
This
last was so vast a sound that it was clear to everybody that
the end of the world was imminent.
when alden entered the great Covis temple on the afternoon
of the third day after the birth of the Linn baby, he was a tired, hungry man.
But he was also a hunted man with the special thoughts of the fugitive. He sank
into the chair that was offered by the junior. And while the young man was
still in process of realizing the situation, Alden ordered him to inform no one
of his presence except Horo, chief scientist of the Covis temple.
"But
Horo is not here," the junior protested. "He has but just now
departed for the palace of the Leader."
Alden
began briskly to remove his female disguise. His weariness flowed from him. Not
here, he was thinking gleefully. That meant he was the senior scientist in the temple until Horo returned. For a man
who had as many thoughts as he had during the afternoon, that was like a
reprieve. He ordered that food be brought to him. He took possession of Horo's
office. And he asked questions.
For
the first time, he learned the only reason so far made public for the
executions at the Raheinl temple. Alden pondered the reason throughout the
early evening, and the more he thought the angrier he grew. He was vaguely
aware that his thinking was on a very radical plane, if not heretical; and yet,
paradoxically, he felt mortified that the gods had been so profoundly insulted
in their temples. Somehow, with a crystalline certainty—that, yet, had in it no
disbelief— he knew that they would not show their displeasure of their own
volition. The thoughts of a fugitive tended automatically towards such
practical convictions. Before the evening was half through, he was examining
the possibilities.
From
time immemorial the gods had favored certain processes. Commanding officers and
other legal owners of spaceships brought ingots of iron to the temples. The
ceremonial and money preliminaries being completed, the iron was then placed in
close proximity to the uncovered god-stuff for one day exactly. After four
days, one for each god, the power of the god-stuff was transmitted to the
ingot. It was then removed by the offerer to his ship where, with simple
ceremonials it was placed in metal chambers—which any metal worker could
make—and by the use of what was known as a photoelectric cell—a device also
known from very early times, like fire and sword and spear and bow—an orderly
series of explosions could be started and stopped at will.
When
enough of these metal chambers were used, the largest ships that could be
constructed by man were lifted as easily as if they were made of nothingness.
From the beginning of things, the god-stuff in all the temples had been kept in
four separate rooms. And the oldest saying in history was that when the gods
were brought too close together, they became very angry indeed.
Alden
carefully weighed out a small quantity of each type of god-stuff. Then he had
four juniors carry a metal chamber from the testing cavern into the garden at
the rear of the temple. At this point it struck him that other temples should
participate in the protest. He had learned that six of the seven members of the
Scientists Council were still at the palace, and he had a rather strong
suspicion as to their predicament.
Writing
from Horo's omate office, he ordered the
acting chiefs of the temples of the absent councilors to do exactly what he was
doing. He described his plan in detail, and finished: "High noon shall be
the hour of protest." Each letter he sent by junior messenger.
He
had no doubts. By noon the following day he had inserted his grains of uranium,
radium, plutonium and ecks into the photoelectric
relay system. From what he decided was a safe distance, he pressed the button
that clicked over the relays in order. As the wonderful and potent ecks, joined the "pile," there was an explosion of
considerable proportions. It was followed swiftly by three more explosions.
Only two of the temples disregarded the commands of the fugitive. They were the
fortunate ones. The first explosion blew half the Covis temple into dust, and
left the remnant a tottering shambles of dislodged masonry and stone.
No
human being was found alive in any of the four temples. Of Alden there was not
even a piece of flesh or a drop of blood.
By
two o'clock mobs were surging around the foot of the palace hill. The palace
guard, loyal to a man, held them off grimly, but retreated finally inside the
gates, and the household of the Leader prepared for a siege.
When the pandemonium was at its height half an hour later, Joquin, who
had been down in the city, returned by a tunnel that ran through the hill
itself, and asked permission to speak to the mob. Long and searchingly, the Lord Leader looked
at him. Then finally, he nodded. The mob rushed at the gates when they opened,
but spearmen held them back. Joquin pressed his way out. His was a piercing
rather than a deep voice, but the rostrum that jutted out
from the hill was skillfully constructed to enable a speaker to address vast
throngs through a series of megaphones.
His
first act was to take the ribbons out of his hair, and let it down around his
shoulders. The crowd began to shout: "Scientist. It's a scientist."
Joquin
raised his hand. And the silence he received was evidence to him at least that
the riots were about to end. The crowd was controllable.
On
his own part, he had no illusions as to the importance of this mob attacking
the palace. He knew that carrier pigeon messages had been dispatched to the
three legions camped just outside the walls of the city. Soon, a disciplined
force would be marching through the streets, paced by cavalry units made up of
provincial troops, whose god was a giant mythical bird called Erplen. It was
important that the crowd be dispersed before those trained killers arrived on
the scene.
"People
of Linn," he said in a clear, confident voice, "you have today
witnessed a telling proof of the power of the gods."
Cries
and groans echoed his words. Then again, silence. Joquin continued, "But
you have misread the meaning of the signs given us today."
This
time, only silence greeted his words. He had his audience.
"If
the gods," he said, "disapproved of the Lord Leader, they could just
as easily have destroyed his palace as they actually did destroy four of their
own temples. It is not the Lord Leader and his actions to which the gods
objected. It is that certain temple scientists have lately tried to split up
the temples into four separate groups, each group to worship one of the four gods
only. That and that alone is the reason for the protest which the gods have
made today."
There
were cries of, "But your temple was among those destroyed."
Joquin
hesitated. He did not fancy being a martyr. He had seen two of the letters
Alden had written—to the two temples which had not obeyed the instructions—and
he had personally destroyed both letters. He was not sure how he ought to
rationalize the fact that a purely mechanical union of god-stuff had produced
the explosions. But one thing at least was certain. The gods had not objected
to their status of being worshipped four in one temple. And since that status
was the only one that made it possible for the scientists to remain strong,
then what had happened could
be the gods' way of
showing that it was their purpose, also.
Joquin
recognized uneasily that his reasoning was a form of sophistry. But this was no
time to lose faith. He bowed his head before the shouting, then
looked up. "Friends," he said soberly, "I confess I was among
those who urged separate worship. It seemed to me that the gods would welcome
an opportunity to be worshipped each in his own
temple. I was mistaken."
He
half turned to face the palace, where far more important ears were hstening
than any in the crowd below. He said, "I know that every person who, like myself, believed the separatist heresy is now as convinced
as I am that neither the four gods or their people would ever stand for such
blasphemy. And now, before there is any more trouble, go home, all of
you." He turned and walked slowly back into the palace grounds.
The
Lord Leader was a man who accepted necessities. "There remains one
undetermined question," he said later. "What is your real reason for
keeping my daughter-in-law's baby alive?"
Joquin
said simply, "I have long wanted to see what would happen if a child of
the gods is given a normal education and upbringing."
That
was all he said. It was enough. The Lord Leader sat with eyes closed,
considering the possibilities. At last, slowly, he nodded his head.
5
even as a baby, Clane had the feeling: I'm not wanted. Nobody likes me.
The
slave women who tended his needs reflected in their handling of him the
antagonism of the parents. They were extremely aware that the mother and father
seldom visited their new baby. For hours, on occasion, the tiny mutation had no
one near it. And when his attendants subsequently found him wallowing in the
wet and filthy cot, they were not inclined to be patient.
Hands
capable of tenderness were somehow rougher when they touched him. And a
thousand moments of ungentle treatment communicated to his muscles and his
nerves, and became a part of his awareness of his environment. He learned to
cringe as a baby, and he cringed as a toddler.
Oddly,
when words began to make sense, there was for a while a change in his
condition. Innocendy, he said things to Joquin which gave that individual his
first realization that the slaves were disobeying his instructions. A few questions
each visit sharpened the picture to the point where the offending slaves
discovered that the end result of unwise action or comments might well be a
whipping. Men and women both learned the hard way that even defenseless babies
grow older and show evidence of the treatment they have received.
However,
the youngster's developing ability to understand had its drawbacks. Somewhere
between the ages.of three and four, Clane realized that he was different. Enormously, calamitously different. Between four and six,
his sanity suffered collapse after collapse, each time to be slowly built back
again by the aging scientist. Presently, the scientist Joquin realized that
more drastic action was necessary if the boy's reason were to be saved.
"It's
the other children," Joquin, white with fury, told the Lord Leader one
day. "They torment him. They're ashamed of him. They defeat everything I
do."
The
Linn of Linn gazed curiously at the temple man. "Well, so am I ashamed of
him, ashamed of the very idea of having such a grandson." He added:
"I'm afraid, Joquin, your experiment is going to be a failure."
It
was Joquin, now, who stared curiously at the other. In the six years that
followed the crisis of the temples of the atom gods, he had come to have a new
and more favorable regard for the Lord Leader. During those years it had
occurred to him for the first time that here was the greatest civil administrator
since legendary times. Something, also, of the man's basic purpose—unification
of the empire—had shown occasionally through the bleak exterior with which he
confronted the world. Here was a man, moreover, who had become almost
completely objective in his outlook on life. That was important right now. If
Clane were to be saved, the cooperation of the ruler of Linn was essential. The
Lord Leader must have realized that Joquin's visit had a specific objective. He
smiled grimly.
"What
do you want me to do? Send him to the country where he can be brought up in
isolation by slaves?"
"That,"
said Joquin, "would be fatal. Normal slaves
despise the mutations as much as do freedmen, knights and patrons. The fight
for his sanity must be made here in the city."
The
other was suddenly impatient. "Well, take him away to the temples where
you can work on him to your heart's content."
"The
temples," said Joquin, "are full of rowdy initiates and
juniors."
The
Lord Leader glowered. He was being temporized with, which meant that Joquin's
request was going to be difficult to grant. The entire affair was becoming
distasteful. "I'm afraid, old man," said the Lord Leader gravely,
"you are not being sensible about this matter. The boy is like a hothouse
plant. You cannot raise the children of men that way. They must be able to
withstand the rough and tumble of existence with their fellows even when they
are young."
"And
what," flashed Joquin, "are these palaces of yours but hothouses
where all your youngsters grow up sheltered from the rough and tumble of life
out there?"
The
old scientist waved his hand towards the window that opened out overlooking the
capital of the world. The Leader smiled his acceptance of the reality of the
comparison. But his next words were pointed.
"Tell me what you
want. Ill tell you if it can be done."
Joquin did not hesitate. He
had stated his objections, and, having eliminated the main alternatives, he
recognized that it was time to explain exactly what he wanted. He did so,
succinctly. Clane had to have a refuge on the palace grounds. A sanctuary where no other children could follow him under penalty
of certain punishment.
"You
are," said Joquin, "bringing up all your male grandchildren on your
grounds here. In addition, several dozen other children—the sons of hostages,
allied chiefs and patrons—are being raised here. Against that crowd of normal,
brilliant boys, cruel and unfeeling as only boys can be, Clane is defenseless.
Since they all sleep in the same dormitory, he has not even the refuge of a room
of his own. I am in favor of his continuing to eat and sleep with the others,
but he must have some place where none can pursue him."
Joquin
paused, breathless, for his voice was not what it had been. And, besides, he
was aware of the tremendousness of the request. He was asking that restrictions
be put upon the arrogant, proud little minds and bodies of the future great men
of Linn—patrons, generals, chieftains, even Lord Leaders of twenty, thirty,
forty years hence. Asking all that, and for what? So that a poor wretch of a
mutation might have the chance to prove whether or not he had a brain.
He
saw that the Lord Leader was scowling. His heart sank. But he was mistaken as
to the cause of the expression. Actually, he could not have made his request at
a better time. The day before, the Lord Leader, walking in the grounds, had
found himself being followed by a disrespectful, snickering group of young
boys. It was not the first time, and the memory brought the frown to his face.
He
looked up decisively and said, "Those young rascals need discipline. A
little frustration will do them good. Build your refuge, Joquin. I'll back it
up for a while."
The
palace of the Leader was located on Capitoline Hill. The hill was skillfully
landscaped. Its grounds were terraced and built up, be-gardened and be-shrubbed
until the original hill was almost unrecognizable to old-timers like Joquin.
There was a towering rock on a natural peak
at the west end of the grounds. To reach it one followed a narrow path up a
steep slope, and then climbed the steps that had been cut into the solid rock
to the top of the rock itself.
The
rock was bare until Joquin took it over. Swiftly, under his direction, slaves
carried up soil, and slave gardeners planted shrubs, grass and flowers, so that
there might be protection from the hot sun, a comfortable green on which to
stretch out and an environment that was beautiful and colorful. He built an
iron fence to guard the approaches to the pathway, and at the gate stationed a
freedman who was six feet six inches tall and broad in proportion. This man had
a further very special qualification in that a child of the gods had also been
born to his wife some four years before. The big man was a genial, friendly
individual who prevented the more rowdy boys from following Clane by the
simple act of wedging his great body into the narrow gate.
For
weeks after the aerie was ready, and the restriction imposed, the other
children railed and shrieked their frustration. They stood for hours around
the gate tormenting the guard, and yelling threats up to the rock. It was the
imperviousness of the always friendly guard that baffled them in the end. And
at long last the shivering boy in the aerie had time to become calm, to lose
that sense of imminent violence, and even to acquire the first feeling of
security. From that time on, he was ignored. No one played with him, and, while
their indifference had its own quality of cruel-ness, at least it was a
negative and passive attitude. He could live his private life.
His
mind, that wounded, frightened, and delicate complex of intellect and emotion,
came slowly out of the darkness into which it had fled. Joquin lured it forth
with a thousand cunnings. He taught it to remember simple poetry. He told the
boy stories of great deeds, great battles, and many of the fairy tales
currently extant. He gave him at first carefully doctored but ever more
accurate interpretations of the political atmosphere of the palace. And again
and again, with developing conviction, he insisted that being bom a mutation
was something different and special and important. Anybody could be bom an
ordinary human, but few were chosen by the gods of the atoms.
There
was danger, Joquin knew, in building up the ego of a Linn to feel superior even
to the human members of his own family.
"But,"
as he explained one day to the Lord Leader, "he'll learn his limitations
fast enough as he grows older. The important thing now is that his mind at the
age of eight has become strong enough to withstand the most vulgar and
sustained taunting from other boys. He still stammers and stutters like an
idiot when he tries to talk back, and it's pitiful what happens to him when he
is brought into contact with a new adult, but unless surprised, he has learned
to control himself by remaining silent. I wish." Joquin finished,
"that you would let him accustom himself to occasional visits from
you."
It
was an oft-repeated request, always refused. The refusals worried Joquin, who
was nearly eighty years old. He had many anxious moments as to what would
happen to the boy after his own death. And in order to insure that the blow
would not be disastrous, he set about enlisting the support of famous scholars,
poets and historians. These he first partially persuaded by argument, then introduced one by one as paid tutors to the boy. He
watched each man with an alertness that swiftly eliminated those who showed in
any way that they did not appreciate the importance of what was being
attempted.
The boy's education turned
out to be an expensive generosity, as neither the allowances of the Lord
Leader, his grandfather, or of Lord Creg, his father, were sufficient to
cover the fees of the many famous men Joquin employed. Indeed, when Joquin
died, just before Clane's eleventh birthday, the liquid assets of the estate
barely sufficed to pay the minor bequests after death taxes were deducted.
He left ten million sesterces to be divided
among juniors, initiates and seniors of various temples. Five
million sesterces he bequested to personal friends. Two million more
went to certain historians and poets in order that they might complete books which
they had begun, and finally there were five great grandnephews who each
received a million sesterces.
That
disposed almost entirely of the available cash. A bare five hundred thousand
sesterces remained to keep the vast farms and buildings of the estate in
operation until the next crop was harvested. Since these were left in their
entirety, along with upward of a thousand slaves, to Clane, there was a short
period when the new owner, all unknown to himself, was
on the verge of bankruptcy.
The
situation was reported to the Lord Leader, and he advanced a loan from his
private purse to tide over the estate. He also took other steps. He learned
that Joquin's slaves were disgruntled at the idea of belonging to a mutation.
He sent his spies among them to find out who were the ringleaders, and then
hanged the four chief troublemakers as examples. It also came to his ears that
Joquin's great grandnephews, who had expected the
estate, were making dark threats about what they would do to the
"usurper." The Lord Leader promptly confiscated their shares of the
inheritance, and sent all five of them to join Lord Creg's army which was on
the point of launching a major invasion against Mars.
Having
done so much, the old ruler proceeded to forget all about his grandson. And it
was not until some two years later, when, seeing the boy one morning pass
beneath the window of his study, he grew curious.
That
very afternoon he set out for the rock aerie to have a look at the strangest
youth who had ever been born into the Linn family.
he was puffing by the time he reached the foot of the rock.
That startled him. "By the four atom gods," he thought, "I'm
getting old." He was sixty-three, within two months of sixty-four.
The
shock grew. Sixty-four. He
looked down at his long body. An old man's legs, he thought, not so old as some men of sixty-four, but there was no question
any more that he was past his prime. "Creg was right," he thought,
aghast. "The time has come for me at least to retrench. No more wars after
Mars except defensive ones. And I must name Creg my heir and co-Lord
Leader." It was too big a subject for the moment. The thought, heir,
reminded him where he was. One of his grandsons was up there with a tutor. He
could hear the murmuring baritone of the man, the occasional remark of the
boy. It sounded very human and normal.
The
Lord Leader frowned, thinking of the vastness of the world and the smallness of
the Linn family. Standing there, he realized why he had come to this spot. Everyone of them would be needed to hold the government
together. Even the lamebrains, even the mutations, must be given duties
consonant with their abilities. It was a sad and terrible thing to realize
that he was approaching the ever more lonely peak of
his life, able to trust only those of his own blood. And even they clung
together only because of the restless tide of ambition that surged on every
side.
The
old man smiled, a mixture of wry, grim humor. Something
of the steely quality of him showed in the natural shape his jaws and chin
assumed. It was the look of the man who had won the bloody battle of Attium
that made Linn his; the smile of the man who had watched his soldiers hack
Raheinl to pieces with battle-axes. "There was a man," he thought,
still amazed after nearly thirty years, that the leader of the opposing group
should have been so perverse. "What made him refuse all my offers? It was
the first time in the history of civil war that such an attempt at conciliation
was made. I was the compromiser. He wanted the world, and I did not want it, at
least not in that way, but had to take it perforce to save my life. Why must
men have all or nothing?"
Surely,
Raheinl, cold and calm, waiting for the first axe to strike, must have realized
the vanity of his purposes. Must have known, also, that nothing could save him;
that soldiers who had fought and bled and feared for their lives would stand
for no mercy to be shown their main enemy. In spite of the impossibility,
Raheinl had received a measure-of mercy. The Leader recalled with crystallike
clarity his selection of the executioners. He had ordered that the very first
blow be fatal. The crowd wanted a torture, a spectacle. They seemed to get it, but actually, it was a dead man who was hacked to bits before
their eyes.
Watching
the great Raheinl being destroyed chilled forever the soul of the Lord Leader.
He had never felt himself a participant of the murder. The crowd was the
killer. The crowd and its mindless emotions, its strength of
numbers that no man could ignore without the deadliest danger to himself and
his family. The crowd and its simple blood-thirstiness frightened him
even while he d&spised it, and influenced him while he skillfully used it
for his own ends. It was rather dreadful to think that not once in his entire
life had he made a move that was not motivated by some consideration of the
crowd.
He
had been born into a world already devasted by two powerful opposing groups.
Nor was it a question of which group one joined. When the opposition was in
power they tried to kill, disgrace or exile all the members of every family of
the other party. During such periods, the children of many noble families were
dragged through the streets on the ends of hooks and tossed into the river.
Later, if you were among those who survived, it was a question of striving to
attain power and some control of your own group. For that, also, could not be
left to chance and sympathy. There were groups within groups, assassination to
eliminate dangerous contenders for leadership. An enormous
capacity on everybody's part for murder and treachery.
The
survivors of that intricate battle of survival were— tough.
The Lord Leader Linn pulled his mind slowly
out of its depth of memory and began to climb the steps cut into the towering
rock itself. The top of the rock had a length of twenty feet, and it was almost
as wide. Joquin's slaves had deposited piles of fertile soil upon it, and from
this soil flowering shrubs reared up gracefully, two of them to a height of
nearly fifteen feet.
The
mutation and the tutor sat in lawn chairs in the shade of the tallest shrub,
and they were so seated that they were not immediately aware of the Lord
Leader's presence.
"Very
well, then," the scholar, Nellian, was saying, "we
have agreed that the weakness of Mars is its water system. The various canals,
which bring water down from the north pole, are the
sole sources of water supply. It is no wonder that the Martians have set up
temples in which they worship water as reverently as we worship the gods of the
atoms. It is, of course, another matter," Nellian continued, "to know
what use can be made of this weakness of Mars. The canals are so wide and so
deep that they cannot, for instance, be poisoned even temporarily."
"Macrocosmically
speaking," said the boy, "that is true. The molecular world offers
few possibilities except the forces which man's own body can bring to
bear."
The
Lord Leader blinked. Had he heard correctly? Had he heard a boy of thirteen
talk like that?
He had been about to step
forward and reveal himself. Now, he waited, startled and interested.
Clane
continued, "The trouble with my father is that he is too trusting. Why he
should assume that it is bad luck which is frustrating his war, I don't know. If
I were he I would examine the possibilities of treachery a little more
carefully, and I'd look very close indeed at my inner circle of advisers."
Nellian
smiled. "You speak with the positivity of youth. If you ever get onto a
battlefield you will realize that no mental preconception can match the
reality. Vague theories have a habit of collapsing in the face of showers of
arrows and spears, and in-fighting with swords and axes."
The
boy was imperturbable. "They failed to draw the proper conclusions from the
way the spaceships carrying the water exploded. Joquin would have known what to
think about that."
The
talk, while still on a high grammatical level, was, it
seemed to the Lord Leader, becoming a little childish. He stepped forward and
cleared his throat.
At
the sound, the scholar turned serenely, and then, as he saw who it was, he
stood up with dignity. The mutation's reaction was actually faster, though
there was not so much movement in it. At the first sound, he turned his head.
And that was all. For a long moment, he sat frozen in that position. At first
his expression remained unchanged from the quiet calm that had been on it. The
Lord Leader had time for a close look at a grandson whom he had not seen so
near since the day Clane was bom.
The
boy's head was human. It had the distinctive and finely shaped Linn nose and
the Linn blue eyes. But it had something more, too. His mother's delicate
beauty was somehow interwoven into the face. Her mouth was there, her ears and
her chin. The face and head were beautifully human, almost angelic in their
structure. It was not the only human part of him. But most of the rest was at
very least subtly unhuman. The general shape was very, very manlike. The body,
the torso, the legs and arms—they were all there, but wrong in an odd fashion.
The
thought came to the Lord Leader that if the boy would wear a well-padded
scholar's or scientist's gown, and keep his arms withdrawn into the folds—his
hands were normal—no one would ever more than guess the truth. There was not even
any reason why that face should not be put on one of the larger silver or gold
coins, and circulated among certain remote and highly moral tribes. The angel
qualities of Clane's face might very well warm many a barbarian heart.
"Thank
the gods," thought the Lord Leader, not for the
first time, "that he hasn't got four arms and four legs."
His
mind reached that thought just as the paralysis left the boy. (It was only then
that the Lord Leader realized that Clane had almost literally been frozen where
he was.) Now, the transformation was an amazing spectacle. The perfect face
began to change, to twist. The eyes grew fixed and staring,
the mouth twitched and lost its shape. The whole countenance collapsed into a
kind of idiocy that was terrible to see. Slowly, though it didn't take too
long, the boy's body swung out of the chair, and he stood half crouching,
facing his grandfather. He began to whimper, then to gibber.
Beside
him, Nellian said sharply, "Clane, control yourself." The words were
like a cue. With a low cry, the boy darted forward, and ducked past the Lord
Leader. As he came to the steep stone stairway, he flung himself down it at a
reckless speed, almost sliding down to the ground more than twenty feet below.
Then he was gone down the pathway.
There
was silence, and Nellian said finally, quietly, "May I speak?"
The Lord Leader noted that the scholar did
not address him by his titles, and a fleeting smile touched his lips. An anti-imperialist. After a moment he felt annoyed—these
upright republicans—but he merely nodded an affirmative to the verbal request.
Nellian
said, "He was like that with me, also, when Joquin first brought me up to
be his tutor. It is a reversion to an emotional condition which he experienced
as a very young child."
The Lord Leader said nothing. He was gazing
out over the city. It was a misty day, so the haze of distance hid the farther
suburbs. From this height, they seemed to melt into the haze—houses, buildings,
land grown insubstantial. And yet, beyond, he could see the winding river, and
the countryside partially hidden by the veils of mist. In the near distance
were the circus pits, empty now that a great war was taxing the human resources
of an Earth which had attained the colossal population of sixty million
inhabitants. In his own lifetime, the number of people
had nearly doubled.
It
was all rather tremendous and wonderful, as if the race were straining at some
invisible leash, with its collective eyes on a dazzling bright future, the
realities of which were still hidden beyond remote horizons.
The
Lord Leader drew his mind and his eyes back to the rock. He did not look
directly at Nellian as he asked, "What did he mean when he said that my
son, Lord Creg, should watch out for treachery close to him?"
Nellian
shrugged. "So you heard that? I need hardly tell you that he would be in
grave danger if certain ears heard that he had made such remarks. Frankly, I
don't know where he obtains all his information. I do know that he seems to
have a very thorough grasp of palace intrigue and politics. He's very
secretive."
The
Lord Leader frowned. He could understand the secretiveness. People who found
out too much about other people's plans had a habit of turning up dead. If the
mutation really knew that treachery had dogged the Martian war, even the hint
of such knowledge would mean his assassination. The Leader hesitated. Then:
"What did he mean about the spaceships with water blowing up just before
they landed? What does he know about things like that?"
It
was the other's turn to hesitate. Finally, Nellian said, "He's mentioned
that several times. In spite of his caution, the boy is so eager for
companionship, and so anxious to impress, that he keeps letting out his
thoughts to people like myself whom he trusts."
The scholar looked steadily at the Lord
Leader. "Naturally, I keep all such information to myself. I belong to no
side politically."
The
great man bowed ever so slightly. "I am grateful," he said, with a
sigh.
Nellian
said, after an interval, "He has referred a number of times to the Raheinl
temple incident which occurred at the time of his birth, when four temples
exploded. I have gathered that Joquin told him something about that, and also
that Joquin left secret papers at his estate, to which the boy has had access.
You may recall that he has visited the main estate three times since Joquin's
death."
The
Lord Leader recalled vaguely that his permission had been asked by Nellian on
several occasions.
"I
hope it is unnecessary for me to say," Nellian continued, "that the
boy's mentality, as distinct from his emotional nature, is very mature, at
least that of a nineteen-year-old."
"Hm-m-m,"
said the Lord Leader. His manner grew decisive. "We must cure him of his
weakness. There are several methods." He smiled reminiscently. "In
war, when we want to end a man's fear, we subject him to repeated dangers in
actual combat. He might be killed, of course, but if he survives he gradually
acquires confidence and courage. Similarly, an orator must first be trained in
voice control, then he must speak again and again to
acquire poise and an easy address."
The
Leader's lips tightened thoughtfully. "We can hardly initiate him into
war. The soldiers unfortunately regard mutations as ill omens. Public
speaking—that can now best be done by putting him in one of the remoter
temples. From the security of a scientist's robes, he can deliver the daily
incantations, first to the atom gods in private, then in the presence of
scientists, initiates and juniors, and finally before the public. I will make
arrangements for that experience to begin tomorrow. He does not need to live at
the temple."
The Lord Leader paused, and looked keenly at
Nellian. "What do you think of that as a beginning?"
The
scholar nodded judicially. "Excellent, excellent.
I am glad to see you taking a personal interest in the boy."
The
Lord Leader was pleased. "Keep me in touch about" —he
frowned—"once every three months."
He
was turning away when his gaze lighted on something half hidden in the brush at
one edge of the rock. "What's that?" he asked.
Nellian
looked embarrassed. "Why," he said, "why, uh, that's, uh, a
device Joquin rigged up."
The
scholar's self-consciousness amazed the Leader. He walked over and looked at
the thing. It was a metal pipe that disappeared down the side of the rock. It
was almost completely hidden by creeping vines, but little glints of it were
visible here and there both against the rock and against the cliff farther
down.
He
drew back and examined the open end of the pipe again. "Well, I'll be—"
he said. "A listening device, straight down into the
palace grounds."
Nellian said, "There's another one on
the other side."
The
Lord Leader was about to turn away, when he noticed the notebook beside the
tube. He picked it up and rippled through it. All the pages were blank, and
that was puzzling until he saw the bottle of ink and the pen half hidden in the
grass where the book had been.
He
was genuinely interested now. He picked up the bottle, and pulled out the cork.
First he looked hard at the ink, then he smelled it.
Finally, with a smile, he reinserted the cork and replaced the bottle on the
grass.
As
he descended the pathway, he was thinking, "Joquin was right. These
mutations can be normal, even supernormal."
at
this time,
the Martian war was two years old, and it was already proving itself to be the
most costly campaign ever launched. From the very beginning, when it was still
in the planning stages, it had aroused men to bitter passions. To fight it or
not to fight it—three years before that had been the question that split the
inner government group into two violently opposing camps. Lord Creg Linn,
father of Clane, son of the Lord Leader, and General-in-Chief of the expedition,
was from the first completely and without qualification opposed to the war.
He
had arrived at the city from Venus some three years before in his personal
space yacht, and accompanied by most of his staff. He spent months, then,
arguing with his family and with various powerful patrons.
"The
time has come," he told his hearers, "for the empire to stand firm on
all its frontiers. From a single city-state we have grown until we now dominate
all Earth with the exception of a few mountainous territories. Four of the
eleven island continents of Venus are allied to us. And we need not worry about
the habitable moons of Jupiter, since they are inhabited by barbarians. The
Martians, it is true, continue to rule their planet in a brutal fashion, but it
would be wise to leave them alone. The tribes they have conquered are
constantly rebelling against them, and will keep them busy for a measurable
time. Accordingly, they are no danger to us, and that must be our sole
consideration for all future wars."
If
reports were true, many patrons and knights were convinced by this reasoning.
But when they saw that the Lord Leader favored the war, they quickly changed
their minds, at least publicly.
The Lord Leader's wife, Lydia, and Lord
Tews—Lydia's son by a previous marriage—were particularly in favor of the
invasion. Their argument, which eventually became that of the Lord Leader, was
that the Martians had condemned themselves to war by their complete refusal to
have commercial and other intercourse with the rest of the solar system. Who
knew what plans were being made, what armies were under secret training, or how
many spaceships were building on a planet that for more than a dozen years had
admitted no visitors.
It
was a telling argument. Lord Creg's dry suggestion that perhaps the method used
by the empire to invade the Venusian island of Cimbri was responsible,
did not confound the supporters of the war. The method had been simple and
deadly. The Cimbri, a suspicious tribe, agreed finally to permit visitors. They
were uneasy when over a period of several months some thirty thousand stalwart
young male visitors arrived singly and in groups. Their uneasiness was
justified. One night the visitors assembled in the three major Cimbrin cities,
and attacked all centers of control. By morning a hundred thousand inhabitants
had been slain, and the island was conquered.
The
commanding general of that expedition was Lord Tews. At his mother's
insistence, an ashamed patronate voted him a triumph.
It
was natural that the Lydia-Tews group -should regard Creg's remark as a product
of envy. The suggestion was made that his words were unworthy of so illustrious
a man. More slyly, it was pointed out that his own
wars had been drawn out, and that this indicated a cautious nature. Some even
went so far as to say that he did not trust the fighting abilities of Linnan
armies, and they immediately added the comment that this was a base reflection
on the military, and that the only real conclusion to be drawn was that he was
personally a coward.
To
Lord Creg, doggedly holding to his opinions, the greatest shock came when he
discovered that his own wife,
Tania,
supported the opposition. He was so angry that he promptly sent her a bill of
divorcement. The Lady Tania, whose only purpose in supporting the war was that
it would enhance her husband's career, and accordingly improve her position,
promptly suffered a nervous breakdown. A week later she was partially
recovered, but her state of mind was clearly shown by the fact that she took a
gig to her husband's headquarters in the camp outside the city. And, during the
dinner hour, before hundreds of high officers, she begged him to take her back.
The astounded Creg led her quickly through a nearby door, and they were
reconciled.
From
this time dated the change in the Lady Tania. Her arrogance was gone. She
withdrew to a considerable extent from social activities, and began to devote
herself to her home. Her proud, almost dazzling beauty deteriorated to stately
good looks.
It
was an anxious wife who kissed her husband good-by on an early spring day, and
watched his spear-nosed yacht streak off to join the vast fleet of spaceships
mobilizing on the other side of Earth for the take-off to Mars.
Spaceships,
like all the instruments, weapons and engines of transport and war known since
legendary times, had their limitations. They were the fastest thing possessed
by man but just how fast, no one had ever been able to decide. At the time of
the invasion of Mars, the prevailing belief was that spaceships attained the
tremendous speed of a thousand miles an hour in airless space. Since the voyage
to Mars required from forty to a hundred days—depending upon the respective
positions of the two planets—the distance of Mars at its
nearest was estimated at one million miles.
It
was felt by thousands of intelligent people that this figure must be wrong. Because, if it were correct, then some of the remoter stars would
be hundreds of millions of miles away. This was so obviously ridiculous
that it was frankly stated by many diat the uncertainty reflected on the
ability and learning of the temple scientists.
A spaceship one hundred and fifty feet long
could carry two hundred men and no more on a trip to Mars lasting sixty days.
It had room for many more, but the air supply created an insurmountable
limitation. The air could be purified by certain chemicals for so long, then it gave out.
Two hundred men per ship—that was the number carried by each transport
of the first fleet to leave Earth. Altogether there were five hundred ships. Their destination was the
great desert known as Mare Cimmerium. A mile-wide canal cut through the edge of
this desert, and for a hundred miles on either side of the canal the desert was
forced back by green vegetation that fed on the thousands of tiny tributary
canals. Oslin, one of the five important cities of the Martians was located in
a great valley at a point where the canal curved like a winding river.
In a
sense, the canals were rivers. During spring, the water in them flowed steadily
from north to south, gradually slowing until, by mid-summer, there was no
movement. Oslin had a population which was reported to be well over a million. Its
capture would simultaneously constitute a devastating blow to the Martians and
an unmatched prize for the conquerors.
The
fleet reached Mars on schedule, all except one ship turning up at the
rendezvous within the prescribed forty-eight hours. At midnight on the second
day, the vessels proceeded ten abreast towards the
canal and the city. A site some five miles from the city's outskirts had been
selected, and, one after another, the lines of ships settled among the brush
and on the open fields. They began immediately to discharge their cargoes—all
the soldiers, most of the horses and enough equipment and food for a
considerable period.
It
was a dangerous six hours. Spaceships unloading were notoriously vulnerable to
certain types of attack ships fitted with long metal rams, capable of piercing
the thin metal plates of which the outer walls were constructed. For an attack
ship to catch a transport in the air meant almost certain death for everyone
aboard. The attacker, approaching from the side, transfixed an upper plate, and
forced the transport over on its back. Since there were no drive tubes on the
top-side to hold the ship in the air, it usually fell like a stone. Periodic
attempts to install drive tubes on the top as well as on the bottom caused radioactive
burns to crews and passengers, and no amount of interposed lead seemed to stop
the interflow between the tubes.
The
six hours passed without an attack. About two hours after dawn, the army began
to move along the canal towards the city. When they had marched about an hour,
the advance guards topped a hill overlooking a great valley beyond which was
glittering Oslin. They stopped, rearing their horses. Then they began to mill
around. Swiftly, a messenger raced back to Lord Creg, reporting an incredible
fact. A Martian army was encamped in the valley, an army so vast that its tents
and buildings merged into the haze of distance.
The
general galloped forward to have a look. Those about him reported that he was
never calmer as he gazed out over the valley. But his hopes for a quick, easy
victory must have faded at that moment. The army ahead was the main Martian
force, comprising some six hundred thousand men. It was under the personal
command of King Winatgin.
Lord
Creg had already made up his mind to attack at once, when a small fleet of
enemy attack ships whisked over the hill, and discharged a shower of arrows at
the group on the hill, wounding nearly four dozen soldiers. The
General-in-Chief was unhurt, but the escape was too narrow for comfort. Swiftly,
he gave the necessary orders.
His
purpose was simple. King Winatgin and his staff undoubtedly knew now that an
attack was coming. But it was one thing for him to have the information, and
quite another to transmit it to an encamped and spread-out army. That was the
only reason why the battle was ever in doubt. The attackers were outnumbered
six to one. The defense was stolid and uncertain at first, then
it grew heavy from sheer weight of numbers. It was later learned that a hundred
thousand Martians were killed or wounded, hut the
small Linnan army lost thirty thousand men, killed, prisoner and missing. And
when it had still made no headway by late afternoon Lord Creg ordered a
fighting retreat.
His
troubles were far from over. As his troops fell back alongside the greenish red
waters of the canal, a force of five thousand cavalry, which had been out on
distant maneuvers, fell upon their rear, cutting them off from their camp, and
turning their retreat away from the canal, towards the desert.
The
coming of darkness saved the army from further destruction. They marched until
after midnight, before finally sinking down into a fatigued sleep. There was no
immediate rest for Lord Creg. He flashed fire messages to his ships waiting
out in space. A hundred of them nosed cautiously down and discharged more
equipment and rations. It was expected that attack ships would make sneak
attacks on them, but nothing happened, and they effected
a successful withdrawal before dawn. All too swiftly, the protecting darkness
yielded to bright daylight.
The
new materiel saved them that day. The enemy pressed at them hour after hour,
but it was clear to Lord Creg that King Winatgin was not using his forces to
the best advantage. Their efforts were clumsy and heavy-handed. They were
easily outmaneuvered and towards evening, by leaving a cavalry screen to hold
up the Martian army, he was able to break contact completely.
That
night the Linnan army had a much needed rest, and Lord Creg's hopes came back.
He realized that, if necessary, he could probably re-embark his forces and get
off the planet without further losses. It was a tempting prospect. It fitted in
with his private conviction that a war so ill begun had little chance of
success.
But,
reluctantly, he realized that return to Linn was out of the question. The city
would consider that he had disgraced himself as a general. After all, he had selected the point of attack, even though he had disapproved of the
campaign as a whole. And that was another thing. It might be assumed that he who had opposed the war, had deliberately lost the
battle. No, definitely, he couldn't return to Linn. Besides, in any event he
had to wait until the second fleet with another hundred thousand men aboard
arrived about two weeks hence.
Two
weeks? On the fourth day, the thin strip-like ditches of canal water began to
peter out. By evening the soldiers were fighting on sand that shifted under
their feet. Ahead, as far as the eye could see was a uniformly flat red desert.
There was another canal out there somewhere about nineteen days march due east,
but Lord Creg had no idea of taking his army on such a dangerous journey.
Seventy thousand men would need a lot of water.
It
was the first time in Creg's military career that he had ever been cut off from
a water supply. The problem grew tremendous when eleven out of a dozen
spaceships sent for water exploded as they approached the camp, and deluged the
desert and the unlucky men immediately below with boiling water. One ship got
through, but the water aboard was beginning to boil, and the ship was saved
only when those aboard operated the airlock mechanism, letting the steaming
water pour out onto the sand.
The
almost cooked commander emerged shakily from the control room, and reported to
Lord Creg. "We did as you ordered, sir. Got rid of all our equipment, and
dunked the entire ship in the canal, using it as a tanker. It began to get hot
immediately."
He
cursed. "It's those blasted water gods that these Martians worship. They
must have done it."
"Nonsense!"
said Lord Creg. And ordered the man escorted back to his ship by four high
officers.
It
was a futile precaution. Other soldiers had the same idea. The water and canal
gods of the Martians had started the water boiling, and so the ships had exploded.
Lord Creg in a rough and ready speech delivered to a number of legions pointed
out that nothing happened to water brought in the ordinary water tanks of the
ships.
A
voice interrupted him, "Why don't you bring the water in them then?"
The
men cheered the remark, and it was scarcely an acceptable explanation after
that to answer that the main body of ships could not be risked in such an
enterprise.
On
the seventh day the army began to get thirsty. The realization came to Lord
Creg that he could riot afford to wait for the arrival of the second fleet. He
accordingly decided on a plan, which had been in the back of his mind when he
originally selected Oslin as the city which his forces would attack.
That night he called down two hundred ships,
and packed his army into them, nearly three hundred and fifty men to a ship. He
assumed that Martian spies had donned the uniforms of dead Linnans, and were
circulating around his camp. And so he did not inform his staff of the
destination until an hour before the ships were due.
His
plan was based on an observation he had made when, as a young man, he had
visited Mars. During the course of a journey down the Oslin canal, he noticed a
town named Magga. This town, set among the roughest and craggiest hills on
Mars, was approachable by land through only four passes, all easily defendable.
It had had a garrison twenty years before. But Lord Creg assumed rightly that,
unless it had been reinforced since then, his men could overwhelm it. There was
another factor in his favor, though he did not know it at the time of his
decision. King Winatgin, in spite of certain private information, could
scarcely believe that the main Linnan invasion was already defeated. Hourly
expecting vast forces to land, he kept his own armies close to Oslin.
Magga
was taken shortly after midnight. By morning the troops were ready for siege
with a plentiful supply of water. When the second fleet arrived a week later,
they too settled in Magga, and the expedition was saved.
The extent of this defensive victory was
never fully appreciated in Linn, not even by Lord Creg's followers and
apologists. All that the people could see was that the army was jammed into a
small canal town, and seemed doomed, surrounded as it was by a force which
outnumbered it more than six to one. Even the Lord Leader, who had taken many a
seemingly impregnable position in his military days, secretly questioned his
son's statement that they were safe.
Except
for forays, the army remained all that summer and the following winter in
Magga. It was besieged the whole of the next year, while Lord Creg doggedly
demanded another two hundred thousand men from a patronate which was reluctant
to send more men into what they considered certain destruction. Finally,
however, the Lord Leader realized that Creg was holding his own, and personally
demanded the reinforcements. Four new legions were on their way on the day
that the Lord Leader descended the pathway that led down from the
aerie-sanctuary of his mutation grandson.
8
the lord leader was not greatly surprised two weeks later
when Nellian handed him a message from Clane. The letter read:
To my grandfather,
Most Honorable Lord Leader:
I
regret exceedingly that my emotions were so uncontrollable when you came to
see me. Please let me say that I am proud of the honor you have done me, and
that your visit has changed my mind about many things. Before you came to the
aerie, I was not prepared to think of myself as having any obligations to the
Linn family. Now, I have decided to live up to the name, which you have made
illustrious. I salute you, honorable grandfather, the
greatest man who ever lived.
Your
admiring and humble grandson,
Clane
It
was, in its way, a melodramatic note, and the Lord Leader quite seriously
disagreed with the reference to himself as the greatest man of all time. He
was not even the second, though perhaps the third.
"My
boy," he thought, "you have forgotten my uncle, the general of generals, and his opponent the dazzling personality
who was given a triumph before he was twenty, and officially when he was still
a young man voted the right to use the word 'great' after his name. I knew them
both, and I know
where I stand."
Nevertheless,
in spite of its wordy praise, the letter pleased the Lord Leader. But it
puzzled him, too. There were overtones in it, as if a concrete decision had
been made by somebody who had the power to do things.
He
put the letter among his files of family correspondence, starring a new case
labeled "Clane." Then he forgot about it. It was recalled to his mind
a week later when his wife showed him two missives, one a note addressed to herself,
the second an unsealed letter to Lord Creg on Mars. Both the note and the
letter were from Clane. The stately Lydia was amused.
"Here's something that will interest
you," she said.
The
Lord Leader read first the note addressed to her. It was quite a humble affair.
To my most gracious grandmother, Honorable
lady:
Rather than burden your husband, my grandfather,
with my
request, I ask you most sincerely to have the enclosed letter sent by the
regular dispatch pouch to my father, Lord Creg. As you will see it is a prayer
which I have made at the temple for his victory over the Martians this summer.
Most
respectfully yours,
Clane
"You know," said Lydia, "for a
moment when I received that, I didn't even know who Clane was. I had some vague
idea that he was dead. Instead, he seems to be growing up."
"Yes," said the Lord Leader
absently, "yes, he's growing."
He
was examining the prayer which Clane had addressed to Lord Creg. He had an odd
feeling that there was something here which he was not quite grasping. Why had
this been sent through Lydia? Why not direct to himself?
"It's
obvious," said Lady Linn, "that since there is to be a temple dedication, the letter must be
sent."
That
was exactly it, the Lord Leader realized. There was nothing here that was being
left to chance. They had to send the letter.
But
why was the information being conveyed through Lydia? He reread the prayer,
fascinated this time by its ordinariness. It was so trite, so unimportant, the
kind of prayer that made old soldiers wonder what they were fighting for—morons? The lines were widely spaced, to an exaggerated
extent, and it was that, that suddenly made the Leader's eyes narrow ever so
slightly.
"Well,"
he laughed, "111 take this and
have it placed in the dispatch pouch."
As
soon as he reached his apartment, he lit a candle,
and held the letter over the flame. In two minutes, the invisible ink was
beginning to show in the blank space between the lines. Six
lines of closely written words between each line of the prayer. The Lord
Leader read the long, precise instructions and explanations, his hps tight. It
was a plan of attack for the armies on Mars, not so
much military as magical. There were several oblique references to the blowing
up of the temples many years before, and a very tremendous implication that
something entirely different could be counted on from the gods.
At
the end of the letter was a space for him to
sign. He did not sign immediately, but in the end he slashed his signature on
to the sheet, put it into the envelope and affixed his great seal of state.
Then he sat back, and once more the thought came: But why Lydia?
Actually,
it didn't take long to figure out the extent of the treachery that had baffled
Lord Creg's sorely pressed legions for three years.
As
close as that, the Lord Leader thought grayly. As close in
the family as that. Some of the plotting must have been done in the
garden some sixty feet below the rock aerie where a child of the gods lay with
his ear pressed to a metal tube listening to conspiratorial words, and noting
them down in invisible ink on the pages of an apparendy blank notebook.
The
Lord Leader was not unaware that his wife intrigued endlessly behind his back.
He had married her, so that the opposition would have a skillful spokesman in
the government. Through her, he learned what they were after. And gave as much
as would satisfy. By seeming to follow her advice, he brought hundreds of able
administrators, soldiers and patrons from the other side into the government
service to manage the unwieldy populations of Earth, and rule solar colonies.
In the previous ten years, more and more opposition patrons had supported his
laws in the patronate without qualification. They laughed a little at the fact
that he still read all his main speeches. They ridiculed his stock phrases:
"Quicker than you can cook asparagus." "Words fail me, gentlemen."
"Let's be satisfied with the cat we have." And
others. But again and again during the past decade, all party lines
dissolved in the interests of the empire. And, when his agents reported
conspiracies in the making, further investigation revealed that no powerful
men or families were involved.
Not
once had he blamed Lydia for the various things she had done. She could no more
help being of the opposition than he, years before, had been able to prevent
himself from being drawn, first as a youth, then as a man, into the vortex of
the political ambitions of his own group. She would have been assassinated if
it had ever seemed to the more hotheaded of the
opposition that she was "betraying" them by being too neutral.
No,
he didn't blame her for past actions. But this was different. Vast armies had been
decimated by treachery, so that Lord Creg's qualities as a leader would show up
poorly in comparison to Lord Tews'. This was personal, and the Lord Leader
recognized it immediately as a major crisis. The important thing, he reasoned,
was to save Creg, who was about to launch his campaign. But meanwhile, great
care must be taken not to alarm Lydia and the others. Undoubtedly, they must
have some method of intercepting his private mail pouch to Creg. Dared he stop
that? It wouldn't be wise to do so.
Everything
must appear normal and ordinary, or their fright might cause some foolhardy
individual to attempt an impromptu assassination of the Lord Leader. As it was,
so long as Lord Creg's armies were virtually intact, the group would make no
radical moves.
The
pouch, with Clane's letter in it, would have to be allowed to fall into their
hands, as other pouches must have done. If the letter were opened, an attempt
would probably be made to murder Clane.
Accordingly,
the Lord Leader spoke to Nellian. "I think Clane should make a tour of
Earth," he said. "Haphazard, without any
particular route. And incognito. Start soon. Tomorrow."
The
Lord Leader then dispatched the mail pouch. A knight and patron scrutinized
each letter, and separated them into two piles. One of these piles, the largest
one by far, was returned to the pouch at once. The other pile was examined by
Lord Tews, who extracted from it some score of letters, which he handed to his
mother.
Lydia
looked at them one by one, and handed those she wanted opened to one or the
other of two slaves, who were skilled in the use of chemicals. It was these
slaves who actually removed the seals.
The
seventh letter she picked up was the one from Clane. Lydia looked at the
handwriting on the envelope, and at the name of the sender on one side, and
there was a faint smile on her lips. "Tell me," she said, "am I
wrong, or does the army regard dwarfs, mutations and other human freaks as bad
omens?"
"Very
much so," said one of the knights. "To see one of them on the morning
of battle spells disaster. To have any contact with one means a great
setback."
The
Lady Leader smiled. "My honorable husband is almost recalcitrantly
uninterested in such psychological phenomena. We must accordingly see to it
that Lord Creg's army is apprized that he has received a message from his
mutation son."
She
tossed the letter towards the pouch. "Put this in. I have already seen the
contents."
Hardly
more than three quarters of an hour later, the dispatch carrier was again on
his way to the ship.
What
was much more surprising to the eonspirators occurred the following day, when
the Lord Leader called the two chambers of the Patronate into joint session. As soon as possible after the announcement was
made, the Lady Lydia attended upon her husband in his apartment, and questioned
him about it. But the great man shook his head, smiled, and said without
apparent guile, "My dear, it will be a pleasant surprise for everyone. You
must permit me a few simple pleasures of this kind."
By
the time the special session began a few days later, her spies had still not
found a clue to the subject matter to be dealt with. Both she and Lord Tews
sought out, and talked to, some of the leaders of the Patronate in the hope
that they would have, as Lydia put it, a "thimbleful of information."
But it was clear to her, from the way that she herself was adroitly questioned,
that they were as much in the dark as she. And so for the first time in many
years, she had the unhappy experience of sitting in her box at the Patronate
without knowing in advance what was scheduled to happen.
The
fateful moment arrived. She watched her husband stride along the aisle and
mount the podium, and in a final anguish of doubt and exasperation, she
clutched the sleeve of Tews' jacket, and whispered fiercely, "What can he
possibly have in mind? The whole affair has become fantastic."
Tews said nothing.
The
Lord Leader, Medron Linn, began in the formal, prescribed fashion:
"Most
excellent members of my family, gracious and astute leaders of the Patronate,
noble Patrons and their worthy families, Knights of the Realm and their ladies,
honorable members of the public house, representatives of the good people of
the empire of Linn—it is with pleasure that I announce a decision which I feel
sure will immediately have your support—"
That
was chilling. There was a stir in the-audience, and then a settling down. Lydia
closed her eyes and quivered with frustration. Her husband's words meant that
there would be no debate, and no discussion. The Patronate would later go
through the form of ratification, but actually the announcement the Lord
Leader was making would virtually become law as he spoke the words.
Tews
leaned towards his mother. "Notice," he said, "he is not reading
his speech."
Lydia
had not noticed. She should have, she realized wanly. Her spies among the
household attendants had reported often enough that they could find no
discarded papers, no speeches half written, no
scribblings anywhere in the Lord Leader's apartment or offices.
On the podium, Medron Linn continued:
"It
is not easy for a man who has been as active as I have to realize that the
years are creeping up. But there seems to be no doubt that I have grown older
and that I am physically less robust today than I was ten years ago, or even
ten months ago. The time has accordingly come for me to consider naming an
heir, and by that I mean not only a successor but a joint administrator, who
will be co-Lord Leader while I remain in office, and
senior Lord Leader after my retirement or death. With these thoughts in mind,
it is my great joy to inform you that I have selected for this important
position my beloved son, Lord Creg, whose long and honorable public career has
in the past few years been augmented by several major achievements."
One
after another he listed successes of Lord Creg in his early career. Then:
"His
first great achievement in the Martian campaign, so ill-begun, was when he
rescued his army from the unfortunate coincidence which brought him into
direct contact with greatly superior enemy forces at the moment of landing, and
which could have resulted in an unparalleled disaster for Linnan arms. It is
almost a miracle that he has again brought his army to the point where he can
shortly take the offensive, but this time we can be sure that he will gain the
victory which was snatched from him by accident two years ago."
He
paused, and then while Lydia listened, with eyes open now, already resigned to
the disaster that was here for her, he said firmly:
"Upon
my son, Lord Creg, I now bestow joint administratorship with myself of the
entire Linnan empire, and upon my son, Lord Creg, I
bestow the title, Lord Leader. This title, though junior to mine, is not intended
to be administratively inferior, except insofar as a son honors and respects
his father."
The
Lord Leader paused, and smiled a strange, bleak smile for his grim face, and
went on:
"I know that you will enjoy these happy
tidings with me, and that you will proceed rapidly—indeed, I suggest that this
be the day and this the hour—with the legal forms of the appointment, so that
we may advise my son of the honor given him by the empire on the eve of his
decisive battle."
He
bowed, and stepped down. It seemed to require a moment for the audience to
realize that he was through, for there was silence. However, the clapping was
all the more frenzied when it finally began, and it lasted until he was out of
the great marble room.
9
lord creg read the the letter from Clane with an amazed
frown. He recognized that the boy's prayer had been used to convey a more
important message, and the fact that such a ruse had been necessary startled
him. It gave a weight to the document, which he would not ordinarily have
attached to so wild a plan.
The
important thing about it was that it required only slight changes in the
disposition of his troops. His intention was to attack. It assumed that he
would attack, and added a rather unbelievable psychological factor.
Nevertheless, in its favor was the solid truth that eleven spaceships filled
with water had exploded, a still unexplained phenomenon after two years.
Creg
sat for a long time pondering the statement in the letter that the presence of
King Winatgin's army at Oslin had not been an accident, but had been due to
treachery hitherto unknown in Linn. "I've been cooped up here for two
years," he thought bitterly, "forced to fight a defensive war because
my stepmother and her plumpish son craved unlimited power."
unl
He
pictured himself dead, and Tews succeeding to the Lord Leadership. After a
moment, that seemed appalling. Abruptly, decisively, he called on a temple
scientist attached to the army, a man noted for his knowledge of Mars.
"How fast do the Oslin canal waters move at this time of year?"
"About five miles an
hour," was the reply.
Creg
considered that. About one hundred and thirty miles in a
Martian day. A third of that should be sufficient, or even less. If the
dedicated metal were dropped about twenty miles north of the city, the effect,
whatever it was, would be achieved just as his long-planned attack was finally
launched. It would certainly do no harm to include such a minor action as part
of the assault preparation. So-even in his anger—he reassured himself.
The
army was still preparing for the assault, when the news arrived from Earth that
Creg had been appointed co-Lord Leader. The new joint
ruler of the Linnan empire released the announcement
in a modestly worded communique to all ranks—and was almost immediately amazed
at the response. Wherever he went, men shouted the news of his coming, and
there was wild cheering. He had previously been informed by his intelligence
officers that his men appreciated the icy skill with which he had extricated
them from the trap at the time of the original landing. But now he felt himself
the object of warm personal regard.
In
the past, he had occasionally observed the friendliness which some officers
inspired in their men. For the first time, the comradely feeling was for him.
It made all the years of hardship in the field, the strain of maintaining integrity
amid so many corruptions, worthwhile. As a friend and as an adviser, as
General-in-Chief and as a fellow man-at-arms, Lord Leader, Creg Linn, addressed
his men in a special bulletin issued at dawn of the day of attack.
Soldiers
of Linn—The day and the hour of victory are upon us. We have ample forces and an overwhelming abundance of arms to
achieve every purpose which we desire. In these moments before the decisive
battle is joined, let us remember once more that the goal of victory is a
unified solar system, one people, and one u-niverse. We are not concerned with
the corruption which is sometimes attendant upon the achievement of great
purposes. Our goal is an immediate and overwhelming success. But bear in mind,
victory is always the result of unflinching determination combined with the
skills of the veteran fighting man. I therefore admonish you— for your life and
for victory, stand firmly wherever you are, move forward whenever you can. As
soldiers, we dedicate ourselves with the truest and purest motives to the atom
gods, and to victory. Each and every one of you has my personal best wishes.
Creg Linn, Lord, Leader
The second battle of Oslin was never in
doubt. On the morning of the battle, the inhabitants of the city awoke to find
the mile wide canal and all its tributary waters a
seething mass of boiling, steaming water. The steam poured over the city in
dense clouds. It hid the spaceships that plunged down into the streets. It hid
the soldiers who debouched from the ships. By mid-morning King Winatgin's army
was surrendering in such numbers that the royal family was unable to effect an escape. The monarch, sobbing in his dismay,
requested the protection of a Linnan officer, who led him under escort to the co-Lord Leader. The defeated ruler flung himself at Creg's
feet, and then, given mercy, but chained, stood on a hill beside his captor,
and watched the collapse of the Martian military might.
In a
week, all except one remote mountain stronghold had surrendered, and Mars was
conquered. At the height of the triumph, about dusk one day, a poisoned arrow
snapped out of the shadows of an Oslin building and pierced Lord Creg's throat.
He died an hour later in great pain, his murderer still unfound. When the news
of his death reached
Linn,
both sides worked swiftly. Lydia had executed the two slave chemists and the
dispatch carrier a few hours after she heard of Creg's victory. Now, she sent
assassins to murder the two knights and the patron who had assisted in the
opening of the mail. And, simultaneously, she ordered Tews to leave the city
for one of his estates.
By
the time the old Lord Leader's guards arrived to arrest him, the alarmed young
man was off on his private spaceship. It was that escape that took the first
edge off the ruler's anger. He decided to postpone his visit to Lydia. Slowly,
as that first day dragged by, a bleak admiration for his wife built up inside
him, and he realized that he could not afford to- jeopardize his relations with
her, not now when the great Creg was dead. He decided that she had not actually
ordered the assassination of Creg. Some frightened henchman on the scene,
fearing for his own safety, had taken his own action; and Lydia, with a
masterly understanding of the situation, had merely covered up for them all.
It might be fatal to the empire if he broke with her now. By the time she came
with her retinue to offer him official condolences, his mind was made up. He
took her hand in his with tears in his eyes.
"Lydia,"
he said, "this is a terrible moment for me. What do you suggest?"
She
suggested a combination State funeral and Triumph. She said,
"Unfortunately, Tews is ill, and will not be able to attend. It appears to
be an illness that may keep him away for a long time."
The
Lord Leader recognized that it was a surrender of her ambition for Tews, at
least for the time being. It was in reality a tremendous concession, not
absolutely necessary in view of his own determination
to keep the whole affair private.
He
bent and kissed her hand. At the funeral, they marched together behind the
coffin. And because his mind was uneasy with doubts about the future, he kept
thinking. "What now?" It was an agony of indecision, of awareness of
the limitations of one aging man.
He
was still thinking and wondering frantically, when his gaze lighted upon a boy
wearing the mourning robes of a scientist. The youngster walked beside the
scholar Nellian, and that brought recognition that it was his grandson, Clane.
The
Lord Leader walked on behind the glittering coffin which contained the remains
of his dead son, and now for the first time, some of the anguish faded from his
set face, and he grew thoughtful. It was not as if he could build much hope on
a mutation. And yet he recalled what Joquin had once said, about giving the boy
a chance to grow up. "It will be up to him after that," the now-dead
temple scientist had said. And he had gone on to predict that Clane "will
carve his own niche in the Linnan hall of fame."
Medron
Linn, a bereaved and desperate man, smiled grimly. The boy's training must go
on, and for a change a little emotional development might be in order.
Although
he was barely at puberty, it was probably time for Clane to discover that women
were five bundles of emotion, dangerous yet delightful. Experience with women
might well force a balance of mind and body, which an over-intellectualized
existence had disturbed.
10
"the deglet family, later renamed Linn," said the scholar,
Nellian, to his pupil, Lord Clane Linn, "entered the commercial banking
business in a very simple fashion about 150 years ago."
It was a warm summer day a
few weeks after the funeral of Lord Creg. The two sat under a large smoke tree
in the inner grounds of the country estate which Clane had inherited from
Joquin. The fourteen-year-old boy, instead of answering, partly raised himself
from his seat. He gazed along the road which let to the city of Linn eighty
miles away. A cloud of dust was visible on the horizon, and once —as he
watched—sunlight glinted on metal. It could have been a turning wheel, but it
was still too far distant for details-to be identifiable.
Clane
realized that fact abruptly, for he settled back in his chair, and his words,
when he spoke, were a comment on what Nellian had said. Was it not true that
the founder of the family sat on a street corner, and loaned money to passersby
in return for keepsakes, such as jewels and rings?
"I
do believe," nodded the old man, "that your ancestor was an astute
money-lender, and knew his fine metals and precious rocks. But he did presently
move into an establishment."
The
boy chuckled. "A one-room wooden structure, very poorly protected from the
weather."
"Still,"
said his tutor, "the greater dignity of 'quarters' was attained, and
history tells us that, after he was able to purchase slaves, he built himself a
series of structures of varying degrees of quality, making appointments for particular
days at each one, and changing clothes to suit each establishment. Thus in the
course of a week, he would meet a cross section of the population, one day
loaning money from his wooden shack to a workman, and the following day,
perhaps dealing on a vastly larger scale with a knightly family, who would
borrow a small amount of cash on their valuable land and buildings, their
purpose being to maintain a front which they could not of course afford. Your
ancestor recognized the irrationality of such false pride,
and with icy objectivity took advantage of it. Presently, he owned large homes
and estates, and had enemies, who had foolishly signed over their property in
return for a few months more in which to delude themselves." Nellian
paused, and looked questioningly at his pupil. He said, "The look on your
face suggests that what I'm saying has made you thoughtful, young man."
It
had. But Clane was silent, shaking his head a little with the insights that
were flashing through his mind. He said finally, "I'm thinking that pride
has been the downfall of individuals and empires." It was more than that.
He was remembering his own tendency to become paralyzed in the presence of
certain individuals. Could it be that that was his way of maintaining his pride.
He
explained the insight to Nellian. "As I see it, I can keep my self-esteem
in such a situation if I pretend to myself that I am dominated by something
inside me over which I have no control. Under such circumstances, I can feel
self-pity, but do not have to lose face with myself."
He
shook his head, and then—remembering—looked up, and stared into the distance
over the uneven green hills, where the dust cloud now featured a continuous
glint of sunlight on metal. He shook his head because it was still an
unrecognizable mass, and said unhappily: "I wonder if I've done that so
often that now I cannot
control it."
"You're getting better
all the time," said Nellian quickly.
"That's
true." The boy nodded, and he was relieved because he had momentarily
forgotten the fact of his development. "I'm hke a soldier who becomes
more of a veteran with each battle he survives." He frowned.
"Unfortunately, there are certain wars I haven't fought yet."
Nellian
smiled grimly. "You must continue to fight a series of limited
engagements, as Joquin and you decided long ago. And—I believe, from a report
which was conveyed to me recently—it is a policy with which your grandfather
concurs."
Clane
looked at him with narrowed eyes. "Why should my grandfather have
considered such a matter—recently?"
The
long, somewhat lined countenance of the tutor broke into a quizzical smile.
"It's a legal situation," he said.
"Legal?"
"Your
status," said Nellian gently, "was altered when your father was
confirmed as co-Lord Leader."
"Oh,
that!" Clane shrugged under the loose fitting temple gown he wore.
"That has little practical meaning. As a mutation, I am like the hunchback
of a family, who is tolerated because of the blood connection. When I grow up,
I can act as an intriguer behind the scenes of power. At best I may play the
role of a priestly liaison between the temples and the government. My future
promises to be stereotyped and sterile."
"Nevertheless,"
said Nellian, "as one of the three sons of co-Lord Leader Creg Linn, you
have legal rights within the government, which you will have to deal with
whether you like it or not." He finished crustily: "And permit me to
inform you, young man, if your attitude of negation reflects your true
feelings, then both Joquin and I have wasted our time and effort. In the
troubled State of Linn, you will either live up to your rank, or be dead at an
assassin's hand before you attain your majority."
The
boy said coldly, "Old man, continue with your history lesson."
Nellian
smiled bleakly. "Your great, great, great grandfather, Cosan Deglet, was
a banker and a Patron. He had branches in all the principal cities. . . ."
The history of the Deglet-become-Linn family
had another, more mature student. For seven years, after the assassination of
Creg, Lord Tews lived on Awai in the great sea.
He
had a small property on the largest island of the group, and, after his
disgrace, his mother had suggested that he retire there rather than to one of
his more sumptuous mainland estates. A shrewd, careful man, he recognized the
value of the advice. His role, if he hoped to remain alive, must be sackcloth
and ashes.
At
first it was purposeful cunning. In Linn, Lydia racked her brain for
explanations and finally came out with the statement that her son had wearied
and sickened of politics, and retired to a life of meditation beyond the
poisoned waters. For a long time, so plausible and convincing was her sighing,
tired way of describing his feelings—as if she, too, longed for the surcease of
rest from the duties of her position—that the story was actually believed.
Patrons,
governors and ambassadors, flying out in spaceships from Linn to the
continents across the ocean, paused as a matter of course to pay their respects
to the son of Lydia. Gradually they began to realize that he was out of favor.
Desperately, terribly, dangerously out of favor.
The
stiff-faced silence of the Lord Leader when Tews was mentioned was reported
finally among administrators and politicians everywhere. People were
tremendously astute, once they realized. It was recalled that Tews had hastily
departed from Linn at the time when the news of the death of General Lord
Creg, son of the Lord Leader, was first brought from Mars. At the time his
departure had scarcely been remarked. Now it was remembered
and conclusions drawn. Great ships, carrying high government officials,
ceased to stop, so that the officials could float down for lunch with Lord
Tews.
The
isolation affected Tews profoundly. He became tremendously observant. He
noticed in amazement for the first time that islanders swam in the ocean. In
water that had been poisoned since legendary times by the atom gods. Was it
possible the water was no longer deadly? He noted the point for possible future
reference, and for the first time grew interested in
the name the islanders had for the great ocean. Passfic.
Continental people had moved inland to escape the fumes of the deadly seas, and
they had forgotten the ancient names.
He
speculated on the age of a civilization, that had suffered so great a disaster
that—in withdrawing from the shores of the radiation-poisoned oceans—the very
names of those bodies of water had been lost with the passing of time. How
long? He could only guess: thousands of years.
Among other things, Tews made his most
careful study of the rise of the Linn family, from its Deglet origin. Even as
Clane studied the same history, Tews noted that Cosan Deglet, son of the family
founder, was driven from the city of Linn by the enemies of the family.
Formally exiled, all his property—including his banks—confiscated by the
Pa-tronate, he merely retreated to Mars and there, from the banking institution
which he had established as one of his several branches under foreign
governments, he reached back to Linn through unsuspected subsidiaries and
resumed business. As had many another astute person
before him, he had foreseen the exile; and so the conspirators found little of
the treasure they had expected to seize when they took over his buildings.
They
had necessarily recoursed to taxes. These proved so burdensome at that
particular time, that there was a great desire among business men for the
return of Cosan Deglet. This desire—Tews noted in his studies—was cleverly stimulated
from Mars by Cosan himself. At the proper moment, the representatives of the
people formally invited Cosan back from exile, defeated an attempt on the part
of the nobles to seize the government by force, and successfully installed
Cosan as elected Lord Leader.
The
lesson was not lost on the Patrons who were subsequently elected to the Lord
Leadership. Cosan, even when he was officially only a Patron, was repeatedly
consulted, and no action was ever taken which did not have his approval.
For
thirty years, he was virtual lord of Linn. Tews recalled a visit he had paid
to the old palace, where Cosan had lived. It was now a commercial building, but
a brass plate at the entrance, bore an inscription:
Passerby
Once the house of Cosan
Deglet. In
which not alone a great man, but Knowledge herself had her home.
Pursuit
of knowledge, and banking—these were the cornerstones of the Deglet power. So
Lord Tews decided. At key moments, the family's banking interests provided such
a compelling force that resistance was overcome. And, during all the years of
their growth, their penchant for collecting art masterpieces and their
association with learned men brought with it a personal regard and admiration,
which sustained them through the dangerous repercussions of their occasional
errors of judgment.
During
the long months of study and aloneness that followed his ostracism, Tews' mind
dwelt many times on those two factors, and gradually he became critical of the
life he had lived in Linn. He began to see the madness of it, and the endless skulduggery.
He read with more and more amazement the letters of his mother, outlining what
she was doing. It was a tale of endless cunnings, conspiracies and murders,
written in a simple code that was effective because it was based on words the
extra-original meanings of which were known only to his mother and himself.
His
amazement became disgust, and disgust grew into the first comprehension of the
greatness of the Deglet-Linn family, as compared to their opponents.
"Something had to be done about that pack of ignorant thieves and
power-hungry rascals!" Tews decided. "My stepfather, the Lord Leader,
took firm action, which was right at the time."
He
had a great insight. It was no longer the correct approach. The way to a
unified universe was not through a continuation of absolute power for one man,
or family. The old republic never had a chance, since the factions gave it
none. But now, after decades of virtual non-party patriotism under the Lord
Leader, it should be possible to restore the republic with the very good
possibility that it would work. As a safeguard, members of the family must
again become personally skilled in banking practice.
Tews
decided: "I shall make it my personal interest to do all of these things
if I can ever return to Linn."
The months dragged by.
In a routine fashion, Nellian advised Medron Linn that: "... in two weeks, your grandson, Lord
Clane, will take up residence with his retinue in an apartment of the Joquin
Temple, and will resume his studies to the end of becoming a scientist."
The
old man was surprised when a special
messenger arrived two days later in a small space boat—used for fast flights
over the surface of the Earth. The carrier brought an invitation for the tutor
to attend on the Lord Leader at the Capitoline Palace for a conference.
"If possible," said the letter of invitation, "simply come with
the messenger, and you will be returned to your home before nightfall."
Nellian
wisely regarded the invitation as a command. Within two hours, he was ushered
into the presence of Medron Linn. He noted the other's lined,
tired face, was briefly startled; and then took a large chair near the window
overlooking a garden vista.
The
Lord Leader sat down facing the window, but the chair was only a momentary
focal point for his movements. He was away from it more often than on it. He
paced the floor, paused to face Clane's tutor, and then paced again. Presently,
he would be sitting restlessly in his chair, only to be up again, pacing,
pausing, and pacing once more.
In
this wise, they discussed the future of Lord Clane Linn, sixteen years old.
"The
biggest task we have," said Medron Linn, not for the first time,
"will be to keep—uh—inimical forces from having him strangled."
Nellian
remained discreetly silent on that remark. He had no illusions as to who the
"inimical forces" were. The Lady Lydia, wife of Medron Linn, was the
direct danger.
The
Lord Leader paused again in his walking, and this time there was a thoughtful
look on his face. "Ours has been a strange
family," he said reminiscently. "We had the money lender, and then
the shrewd Cosan Deglet, who single-handedly brought our line to its first Lord
Leadership.
We
can pass lightly over Parilee the Elder—his weakness permitted the growth of
strong opposing forces. But the crisis came in the great struggle for the
control of the temples in the time of Parilee Deglet and his brother Loran.
These men were disliked because they were both apt to ride roughshod over the
foolish and the ignorant, and because each in his own way saw something which
had gone almost unnoticed until that time—the growing power of the temples. The priest-politician, working through the highly suggestible
temple congregations, more and more influenced the growing state, and almost
always in a fashion that was unrealistic and narrow-minded, designed solely to
expand the supremacy of the temples. Both Parilee and Loran, as a
deliberate policy—there is no doubt of this in my mind—waged wars which had as
their secondary purpose keeping great bodies of men away from the temples and
of simultaneously giving them a soldier's philosophy which canceled out to some
degree the temple rule. The groups that later aligned themselves with Raheinl
enjoyed throughout their existence the support, open or secret, of the temple
scientists, and it is a remarkable tribute to Loran, my father and his brother
that they were able to maintain their power and prestige—even as they were
hated—while this evergrowing temple force conspired against them. When you
consider that, as youths, they were exiled for nearly fifteen years until they
were both in their middle thirties, you can gain an understanding of the
problems they faced. During that fifteen years, there
was a Linnan law which placed the penalty of death upon anyone who so much as
suggested that the Deglets be allowed to return to Linn. Several friends of
our family were hanged, or beheaded, on this charge."
The
Lord Leader stood grim for a moment, and he seemed to be feeling within himself
the anguish of the death of men who had been executed so long ago. After a
little, he shook himself as if to cast off the feeling, and he said:
"Parilee
and Loran returned to Linn as part of the army leaders' revolt more than sixty
years ago; and they were determined and unpleasant persons. They refused to
place any confidence in the crowds that hysterically cheered their corning. In
an atmosphere of murder and assassination, they held their power—once they
attained it—by ruthless legal control. Parilee was the brilliant general, Loran
the shrewd administrator, and it is natural that he should have brought upon
himself the main anger of the enemies of the family. As Loran's son, I had many
opportunities to observe his methods. They were rough but necessary, but it was
not surprising that, despite all his precautions, he was assassinated. An
uncle of the two men maintained the government until Parilee returned from
Venus with several legions, and firmly re-established our family, with himself
as Lord Leader. One of his first acts was to call me for a conference, and
point out the trend of events. I was seventeen, and the only male Deglet heir
in the direct line, and what he said alarmed me. He anticipated his own death
before long, since he had many ailments, and that meant that I would be only a
youngster still when the crisis came.
"And
so, at seventeen, he made me co-Lord Leader with a
view to establishing my legal right to power. I was twenty-two when he died,
and within a few months the expected insurrection occurred. Because of the
unanticipated defection of part of the army, it proved even more dangerous than
we had thought. And so it took eight years of civil war to break the
deadlock."
The
weary and aging ruler paused, then: "If possible, we must prevent such a
disaster from transpiring when my time comes. And so, it is vital that we
utilize the services of every member of the family. Even Clane must play a
great role."
Nellian,
who had been waiting patiendy for the other's purpose to be revealed, said,
"What do you have in mind for him?"
The
Lord Leader hesitated; then he drew a deep breath, and said sharply, "We
cannot wait until those old temple scientists complete his training. Since
Joquin's death there has been a lack
of enthusiasm for his presence, which reflects the old rebellion and thé old
intrigue. I should like you to ask Clane if he is prepared to assume
immediately the mantle of Chief Scientist, and so become a member of the inner
temple hierarchy?"
"At sixteen!" Nellian breathed. And that, for a while, was all he could think of
saying.
Actually,
he saw nothing wrong in the proposal that a sixteen-year-old should become one
of the leaders of the temple. The pattern of family rights was as ingrained in
him as it was in the Lord Leader. But, as an old temple follower, and
supporter, he felt intensely unhappy at the purpose which was all too plainly
apparent in the ruler, that of using Clane to subordinate the temples to the
Linn family.
He
thought uneasily, "If my training of the boy is effective, he will not be
completely a family supporter, but will regard his role in the temples as
having an importance and meaning all its own." Nevertheless, that was only
a possibility. Clane had his own brand of
arrogance.
Aloud,
Nellian said finally, "Your excellency, intellectually, this boy is
ready. Emotionally—" He shook his head.
The
Lord Leader, who had been briefly seated, came up out of his chair, and walked
forward until he stood directly in front of the tutor, looking down at him. He
said in a deliberate tone, "By the atom gods, he must go through with
this. He will enter the Joquin temple ten days from now, and he will enter as a
Chief Scientist!"
He
turned away, in an attitude of finality; then swung about, and said, "I'll
speak to you again about the dangers of assassination. Meanwhile, advise him to
stay out of Lydia's way. That is all. You may depart."
the growing youth
stayed out of Lydia's way as a matter of policy, carefully and consciously.
When she was at her home in the city of Linn, Clane spent months at his country
estate rather than risk being seen by the Lord Leader's wife. Only when she
retired to one of the remoter palaces did he take up residence in his town
house.
By
mamtaining his distance, he could candidly estimate her danger to him. At no
time during those years before he attained his majority did he have any real
fear of Lady Lydia. He simply knew her for what she was, and acted accordingly.
It
was a period of learning for him. He exhausted the resources of education at
the temples and in Joquin's library. The great scholars who came by invitation
to his home were one by one stripped of their ideas and their knowledge, at
least of as much of it as they would impart. Among the many interesting things
he learned was the fact that one of the greatest repositories of knowledge in
the realm was his grandfather's library at the Capitoline Palace.
There—he
was told—he would be able to find many unobtainable books of olden days,
collected for a hundred years by agents for the Deglets and Linns from all over
the solar system. According to his informant, some of the books had never been
read during the lifetime of any man now living. This was due to the fact that
the Lord Leader had reserved them for his old age in the belief that he would
then have the time to catch up on his learning. As was to be expected of so
busy an individual, the time never arrived.
Clane
waited until Lady Lydia left the city for one of her periodic rests. Then he
established residence in Linn, and requested of the Lord Leader permission to
read the rare books. The great man, whose interest in such projects had long
declined almost to vanishment, granted the permission
—and
so Clane, and three secretary-slaves (two men and a woman) for some weeks,
daily entered the palace library and read about the superstitions of a
transitional period of history. The books had, in every case, been written after the legendary golden age, but before all details about such a period of
human development were generally dismissed as nonsensical lies.
The books added very little data to what he
already knew, but their authors reported the hearsay that had come by father
through son for many generations from mistier days. The stories pointed a
direction. They added to his certainty that he was on a trail that might lead
to even more valuable discoveries than he had already made.
He
was intently engaged one day in the pursuit of reading still another book
when, on looking up to rest his eyes, he saw his step-grandmother come into the
library. It was his first knowledge that she was back in the city.
For
the Lady Lydia, the meeting was as unexpected as it was for Clane. She had
almost forgotten that he existed, having returned to Linn because of a report
from her husband's physician that the Lord Leader was ailing. It was the kind
of report that brought home to her the realization that she must waste no more
time in her purpose of persuading the old man that Tews should be brought back
from exile.
She
saw Clane now for the first time under conditions that were favorable to his
appearance. He was modestly attired in the fatigue gown of a temple scientist,
a costume that was effective for covering up his physical deformities.
There
were folds of cloth to conceal his mutated arms so skillfully that his normal
human hands came out into the open as if they were the natural extensions of a
healthy body. The cloak was drawn up into a narrow, not unattractive band
around his neck, which served to hide the subtly mutated shoulders and the
unhuman chest formation. Above the collar, Lord Clane's head reared with all
the pride of a young lordling.
It
was a head to make any woman look twice, delicately beautiful, with a
remarkably clear skin. Lydia, who had never seen her husband's grandson, except
at a distance— Clane had made sure of that—felt a constricting fear in her
heart.
"By
Uranium!" she thought. "Another great man. As if I didn't have enough trouble trying to get Tews back from
exile."
It
hardly seemed likely that death would be necessary for a mutation. But if she
ever hoped to have Tews inherit the empire, then all the more direct heirs
would have to be taken care of in some way. Standing there, she added this new
relative to her list of the more dangerous kin of the ailing Lord Leader.
She
saw that Clane was looking at her. His face had changed, stiffened, lost some
of its good looks, and that brought a memory of things she had heard about him.
That he was easily upset emotionally. The prospect interested her. She walked
towards him, a thin smile on her long, handsome countenance.
Twice,
as she stood tall before him, he tried to get up. And failed
each time. All the color was gone from his cheeks, his face even more
strained looking than it had been, ashen and unnatural, twisted, changed, the
last shape of vistage beauty gone from it. His lips worked with the effort of
speech, but only a muted burst of unintelligible sounds issued forth.
Lydia
grew aware that the young slave woman secretary was almost as agitated as her
master. The creature looked beseechingly at Lydia, finally gasped, "May I
speak, your excellency?"
That
shocked her. Slaves didn't speak except when spoken to. It was not just a rule
or regulation dependent upon the whim of the particular owner: it was the law
of the land, and anybody could report a breach as a misdemeanor, and collect
half the fine which was subsequently levied from the slave's master. What dazed
Lady Lydia was that she should have been the victim of such a
degrading experience. She was so stunned that the young woman had time to gasp,
"You must forgive him. He is subject to fits of nervous paralysis, when he
can neither move nor speak. The sight of his illustrious grandmother coming
upon him by surprise—"
That
was as far as she got. Lydia found her voice. She snapped, "It's too bad
that all slaves are not similarily afflicted. How dare you speak to me?"
She
stopped, catching herself sharply. It was not often that she lost her temper,
and she had no intention of letting the situation get out of hand. The slave
girl was sagging away as if she had been struck with a
violence beyond her power to resist. Lydia watched the process of
disintegration curiously. There was only one possible explanation for the slave
speaking up so boldly for her master. She must be his companion and friend, as
well as his slave.
It
seemed to her that the moment had potentialities. "What," she said,
"is your name?"
"Selk," The young
woman spoke huskily.
"Oh,
a Martian."
The
Martian war, some years before, had produced some hundreds of thousands, of
husky, goodlooking boy and girl Martians for the slave schools to train.
Lydia's
plan grew clear. She would have the girl assassinated, and so put the first
desperate fear into the mutation. That should hold him until she had succeeded
in bringing Tews back from exile to supreme power. After all, he was not too
important. It would be impossible for a despised mutation to ever become Lord
Leader. He had to be put out of the way in the long run, because the Linn party
would otherwise try to make use of him against Tews and herself.
She
paused for a last look down at Clane. He was sitting rigid, his eyes glazed,
his face still colorless and unnatural. She made no effort to conceal her
contempt as, with a flounce of her skirt,
she turned and walked away, followed by her ladies and personal slaves.
Slaves
were sometimes trained to be assassins. The advantage of using them was that
they could not be witnesses in court either for or against the accused. But
Lydia had long discovered that, if anything went wrong, if a crisis arose as a
result of the murder attempt, a slave assassin did not have the same
determination to win over obstacles. Slaves took to their heels at the
slightest provocation, and returned with fantastic accounts of the odds that
had defeated them. She used former knights and sons of knights, whose families
had been degraded from their rank because they were penniless. Such men had a
desperate will to acquire money, and when they failed she could usually count
on learning the reason.
She
had a horror of not knowing the facts. For more than thirty of her sixty years
her mind had been an unsaturable sponge for details and ever more details. It
was accordingly of more than ordinary interest to her when the two knights she
had hired to murder her stepgrandson's slave girl, Selk, reported that they had
been unable to find the girl.
"There
is no such person now attached to Lord Clane's city household."
Her
informant, a slim youth named Meerl, spoke with that mixture of boldness and
respect which the more devil-may-care assassins affected when talking to high
personages. "Lady," he went on with a bow and a smile, "I think
you have been outwitted."
"I'll
do the thinking," said Lydia with asperity. "You're a sword or a
knife with a strong arm to wield it. Nothing more."
"And a good brain to direct it,"
said Meerl.
Lydia
scarcely heard. Her retort had been almost automatic. Because—could
it be? Was it possible that Clane had realized what she would do?
What
startled her was the decisiveness of it, the prompt action that had been taken
on the basis of what would only have been a suspicion. The world was full of
people who never did anything about their suspicions. If Clane had consciously
frustrated her, then he was even more dangerous than she had thought. She'd
have to plan her next move with care.
She
grew aware that the two men were still standing before her. She glared at
them. "Well, what are you waiting for? You know there is no money if you
fail."
"Gracious
lady," said Meerl, "we did not fail. You failed."
Lydia
hesitated, impressed by the fairness of the thrust. She had a certain grudging
respect for this particular assassin. "Fifty per cent," she said.
She
tossed forward a pouch of money. It was skillfully caught. The men bowed
quickly, stiffly, with a flash of white teeth and clank of steel. They whirled
and disappeared through thick portieres that concealed the door by which they
had entered.
Lydia
sat alone with her thoughts, but not for long. A knock came on another door,
and one of her ladies-in-waiting entered, holding a sealed letter in her hand.
"This arrived, madam, while you were
engaged."
Lydia's
eyebrows went up a little when she saw that the letter was from Clane. She read
it, tight-lipped:
To my most gracious grandmother, Honorable
lady:
I
offer my sincere apologies for the insult and distress which I caused your
ladyship yesterday in the library. I can only plead that my nervous
afflictions are well-known in the family, and that, when I am assailed, it is beyond my power to control myself.
I
also offer apologies for the action of my slave girl in speaking to you. It was
my first intention to turn her over to you for punishment. But then it struck
me that you were so tremendously busy at all times, and besides she scarcely
merited your attention. Accordingly, I have had her sold in the country to a
dealer in labor, and she will no doubt leam to regret
her insolence. With renewed humble apologies, I remain,
Your
obedient grandson, Clane
Reluctantly, the Lady Linn was compelled to
admire the letter. Now she would never know whether she had been outwitted or
victorious.
I
suppose, she
thought acridly, 7 could
at great expense discover if he merely sent her to his country estate, there to
wait until I have forgotten what she looks like. Or could I even do that?
She
paused to consider the difficulties. She would have to send as an investigator someone
who had seen the girl. Who? She looked up. "Dalat."
The woman who had brought the letter
curtsied.
"Yes?"
"What
did that slave girl in the library yesterday look like?"
Dalat
was disconcerted. "W-why, I don't think I noticed,
your ladyship. A blonde, I think."
"A hlonde!" Explosively. "Why, you
numbskull. That girl had the most fancy head of
golden hair that I've seen in many years—and you didn't notice!"
Dalat
was herself again. "I am not accustomed to remembering slaves," she
said.
"Get
out of here," said Lydia. But she said it in a flat tone, without emotion.
Here was defeat.
She
shrugged finally. After all, it was only an idea she had had. Her problem was
to get Tews back to Linn. Lord Clane, the only mutation ever born into the
family of the Lord Leader, could wait.
Nevertheless, the failure rankled.
the lord leader had over a period of years become an ailing
old man, who could not make up his mind. At seventy-one, he was almost blind in
his left eye, and only his voice remained strong. He had a thunderous baritone
that still struck terror into the hearts of criminals when he sat on the chair
of high judgment, a duty which, because of its sedentary nature, he cultivated
more and more as the swift months of his declining years passed by.
The
work had another characteristic. On occasion, after he had made up his mind on
a matter—although the counsel for the opposing sides were still wrangling—he
allowed his thoughts to wander to the ever more pressing problem of the future
of the family.
"The
fact is," he decided one afternoon, "I must see all those young
people personally, and estimate their value as Lord Leader material."
Quite
consciously, he included the mutation among those whom he planned to visit.
That
night he made the mistake of sitting on the balcony too long without a blanket.
He caught a cold, and spent the whole of the month that followed in bed. It was
there, helpless on his back, acutely aware of his weak body, fully, clearly
aware at last that he had at most a few years to live, that the Lord Leader
realized finally that he could delay no longer in selecting an heir. In spite
of his personal dislike for Tews, he found himself listening, at first
grudgingly, then more amenably, to his wife.
"Remember,"
she said, again and again, "your dream of bequeathing to the world a
unified empire. Surely, you cannot become sentimental about it at the last
minute. Lords Jerrin and Draid are still too young. Jerrin, of course, is the
most brilliant young man of his generation. He is obviously a future Lord
Leader, and should be named so in your will. But not yet.
You cannot hand over the solar system to a youngster of twenty-four."
The
Lord Leader stirred uneasily. He noticed that there was not a word in her
argument about the reason for Tews' exile. And that she was too clever ever to
allow into her voice the faintest suggestion that, behind her logic, was the
emotional fact that Tews was her son.
"There
are of course," Lydia continued, "the boy's uncles on their mother's
side, both amiable adininistrators but lacking in will."
She
paused. "And then there are your daughters and sons-in-law, and their
children."
"Forget
them." The Lord Leader, gaunt and intent on the pillow, moved a hand
weakly in dismissal of the suggestion. He was not interested in the
second-raters. "You have forgotten," he said finally,
"Clane."
"A mutation!"
said Lydia, surprised. "Are you serious?"
The
Lord of Linn was silent. He knew better, reluctantly. But he knew why he had
made the suggestion. Delay. He realized he was being
pushed inexorably to choosing as his heir Lidia's plumpish son by her first
husband.
"If
you considered your own blood only," urged Lydia, "it would be just
another case of imperial succession so common among our tributary monarchies
and among the barbarians of Aiszh and Venus and Mars. Politically it would be
meaningless. If, however, you strike across party lines, your action will speak
for your supreme patriotism. In no other way could you so finally and
unanswerably convince the world that you have only its interest at
heart."
The
old scoundrel, dimmed though his spirit and intellect were by illness and age,
was not quite so simple as that. He knew what they
were saying under the pillars, that Lydia was molding him like a piece of putty
to her plans. Not that such opinions disturbed him
very much. The tireless propaganda of his enemies and of mischief makers and gossips
had dinned into his ears for nearly fifty years, and he had become immune to
the chatter.
In
the end the decisive factor was only partly Lydia's arguments, and partly his
own desperate realization that he had little choice. The unexpected factor was
a visit to his bedside by the younger of his two daughters by his first
marriage. She asked that he grant her a divorce from her present husband, and
permit her to marry the exiled Tews.
"I
have always," she said, "been in love with Tews, and only Tews, and I
am willing to join him in exile."
The
prospect was so dazzling that, for once, the old man was completely fooled. It
did not even occur to him that Lydia had spent two days convincing the cautious
Gudrun that here was her only chance of becoming first lady of Linn.
"Otherwise,"
Lydia had pointed out, "you'll be just another relative, dependent upon
the whim of the reigning Lord Leader's wife."
The
Linn of Linn suspected absolutely nothing of that behind-the-scenes connivance.
His daughter married to Lord Tews! The possibilities warmed his shilling
blood. She would serve Tews as Lydia had him, a perfect foil, a perfect representative of his own political group. His daughter!
I
must, he thought, go and see what Clane thinks. Meanwhile I can
send for Tews on a tentative basis.
He
didn't say that out loud. No one in the family except himself realized the
enormous extent of the knowledge that the long-dead temple scientist Joquin had
bequeathed to Clane. The Lord Leader preferred to keep the information in his
own mind. He knew Lydia's propensity for hiring assassins, and it wouldn't do
to subject Clane to more than ordinary danger from that source.
He
regarded the mutation as an unsuspected stabilizing force during the chaos that
might follow his death. He wrote a letter inviting Tews to return to Linn, and,
a week later, finally out of bed, he had himself carried to Clane's residence
in the west suburbs. He remained overnight, and, returning the next day, began
to discharge a score of key men whom Lydia had slipped into administrative
positions on occasions when he was too weary to know what the urgent business
was for which he was signing papers.
Lydia
said nothing, but she noted the sequence of events. A visit
to Clane, then action against her men. She pondered that for some days,
and then, the day before Tews was due, she set out on her first visit to the
modest looking home of Lord Clane Linn, taking care
that she was not expected.
On the way, it occurred to her that she was
not satisfied with her situation. A dozen of her schemes were coming to a head;
and here she was going to see Lord Clane, a completely unknown factor.
Thinking about it from that viewpoint, she felt astonished. What possible
danger, she asked herself again and again, could a mutation be to her?
Even
as those thoughts infuriated the surface of her mind, deep inside, she knew
better. There was something here. The old man would never bother with a
nonentity. He was either quiet with the quietness of weariness, or utterly impatient.
Young people particularly enraged him easily, and if Clane were an exception,
then there was a reason.
From
a distance, Clane's residence looked small. There was brush in the foreground,
and a solid wall of trees across the entire eight-hundred foot front of the
estate. The house peaked a few feet above a mantle of pines and evergreens. As
her chair drew nearer, Lydia decided it was a three-story building, which was
certainly minuscule beside-the palaces of the other Linns. Her bearers puffed
up a hill, trotted past a pleasant arbor of trees, and came after a little to a
low, massive fence that had not been visible from below. Lydia, always alert
for military obstacles, had her chair put down.
She
climbed out, conscious that a cool sweet breeze was blowing where, a moment
before, had been only the dead heat of a stifling summer day. The air was rich
with the perfume of trees and green things.
She
walked slowly along the fence, noting that it was skillfully hidden from the
street below by an unbroken hedge, although it showed through at this close
range. She recognized the material as similar to that of which the temples of
the scientists was constructed, only there was no
visible lead lining. She estimated the height of the fence at three feet, and
its thickness about three and half. It was fat and squat and defensively
useless.
When
I was young, she
thought, 1 could have jumped over it myself. She returned to the chair, annoyed because
she couldn't fathom its purpose, and yet couldn't quite believe it had no
purpose. It was even more disconcerting to discover a hundred feet farther
along the walk that the gate was not a closure but an opening in the wall, and
that there was no guard in sight. In a minute more, the bearers had carried her
inside, through a tunnel of interwoven shrubs shadowed by towering trees, and
then to an open lawn. That was where the real surprise began.
"Stop!" said the
Lady Lydia.
An
enormous combination meadow and garden spread from the edge of the trees. She
had an eye for size, and, without thinking about it, she guessed that fifteen
acres were visible from her vantage point. A gracious stream meandered
diagonally across the meadow. Along its banks scores of guest homes had been
built, low, sleek, be-window-ed structures, each with its overhanging shade
trees. The house, a square-built affair, towered to her right. At the far end
of the grounds were five spaceships neatly laid out side by side.
And everywhere were people. Men and women singly and in groups, sitting in
chairs, walking, working, reading, writing, drawing and painting. Thoughtfully,
Lydia walked over to a painter, who sat with his easel and palette a scant
dozen yards from her. She was not accustomed to being ignored.
She
said sharply, "What is all this?" She waved an arm to take in the
activities of the estate. "What is going on here?"
The young man shrugged. He dabbed
thoughtfully at the scene he was painting, then, still without looking up said,
"Here, madam, you have the center of Linn. Here the thought and opinion of
the empire is created and cast into molds for public consumption. Ideas born
here, once they are spread among the masses, become the mores of the nation and
the solar system. To be invited here is an un-equaled honor, for it means that
your work as a scholar or artist has received the ultimate
recognition that power and money can give. Madam, whoever you are, I welcome
you to the intellectual center of the world. You would not be here if you had
not some unsurpassed achievement to your credit. However, I beg of you, please
do not tell what it is until this evening when I shall be happy to lend you
both my ears. And now, old and successful woman, good day to
you."
Lydia
withdrew thoughtfully. Her impulse, to have the young man stripped and lashed,
yielded before a sudden desire to remain incognito as long as possible while
she explored this unsuspected outdoor salon.
It
was a universe of strangers. Not once did she see a face she recognized. These people, whatever their achievements, were
not the publicized great men of the empire. She saw no patrons and only one man
with the insignia of a knight on his coat. And when she approached him, she
recognized from the alien religious symbol connected with the other markings, that his knighthood was of provincial origin. He
was standing near a fountain which spewed forth a skillfully blended mixture of
water and smoke. It made a pretty show, the smoke rising up in a thin
streamlike cloud. As she paused beside the fountain there was a cessation of
the cooling breeze, and she felt a wave of heat that reminded her of the
steaming hot lower town. Lydia concentrated on the man and on her desire for
information.
"I'm
new here," she said engagingly. "Has this center been long in
operation?"
"About
five years, madam. After all, our young prince is only twenty-four!"
"Prince?" asked
Lydia.
The knight, a rugged-faced
individual, was apologetic.
"I beg your pardon. It is an old word of
my province, signifying a leader of high birth. I discovered on my various
journeys into the pits, where the atom gods live, and where once cities
existed, that the name was of legendary origin. This is according to old books
I found in remnants of buildings."
Lydia
said, shocked, "You went down into one of the reputed homes of the gods,
where the eternal fires burn?"
The
knight chuckled. "Some of them are less eternal than others, I
discovered."
"But weren't you
afraid of being physically damaged?"
"Madam,"
shrugged the other, "I am over fifty years old. Why should I worry if my
blood is slightly damaged by the aura of the gods?"
Lydia
hesitated, interested. But she had let herself be drawn from her purpose.
"Prince," she repeated now, grimly. Applied to Clane, the tide had a
ring she didn't like. Prince Clane. It was rather stunning to discover that
there were men who thought of him as a leader. What had happened to the old
prejudices against mutations? She was about to speak again when, for the first
time, she actually looked at the fountain.
She
pulled back with a gasp. The water was bubbling. A mist of steam arose from it.
Her gaze shot up to the spout, and now she saw that it was not smoke and water
spewing up from it. It was boiling, steaming water. Water
that roiled and rushed and roared. More hot water than she had ever seen
from an artificial source. Memory came of the blackened pots in which slaves
heated her daily hot water needs. And she felt a spurt of pure jealousy at the
extravagant luxury of a fountain of boiling water on one's grounds.
"But
how does he do it?" she gasped. "Has he tapped an underground hot
spring?"
"No,
madam, the water comes from the stream over there." The knight pointed.
"It is brought here in tiled pipes, and then runs off into the various
guest homes."
"Is there some arrangement of hot
coals?"
"Nothing, madam." The knight was beginning to enjoy himself visibly. "There is an
opening under the fountain, and you can look in if you wish."
Lydia
wished. She was fascinated. She realized she had let herself be distracted, but
for the moment that was of secondary importance. She watched with bright eyes
as the knight opened the little door in the cement, and then she stooped beside
him to peer in. It took several seconds to become accustomed to the dim light
inside, but finally she was able to make out the massive base of the spout, and
the six-inch pipe that ran into it. Lydia straightened slowly. The man shut the
door matter-of-factly. As he turned, she asked, "But how does it
work?"
The
knight shrugged. "Some say that the water gods of Mars have been friendly
to him ever since they helped his late father to win the war against the
Martians. You will recall that the canal waters boiled in a frightful fury,
thus confusing the Martians as they were attacked. And then again, others say
that it is the atom gods helping their favorite mutation."
"Oh!"
said Lydia. This was the kind of talk she could understand. She had never in
her life worried about what the gods might think of her actions. And she was
not going to start now. She straightened and glared imperiously at the man.
"Don't be such a fool," she said. "A man who has dared to penetrate the homes of
the gods should have more sense than to repeat old wives' tales like
that."
The
man gaped. She turned away before he could speak, and marched off to her chair.
"To the housel" she commanded her slaves. They had her at the front
entrance of the residence before it struck her that she had not learned the
tremendous and precious secret of the boiling fountains.
She
caught Clane by surprise. She entered the house in her flamboyant manner, and
by the time a slave saw her, and ran to his master's laboratory to bring the
news of her coming, it was too late. She loomed in the doorway, as Clane turned
from a corpse he was dissecting. To her immense disappointment he did not
freeze up in one of his emotional spasms. She had expected it, and her plan was
to look over the laboratory quietly and without interference.
But
Clane came towards her. "Honorable grandmother," he said, and knelt to
kiss her hand. He came up with an easy grace. "I hope," he said with
an apparent eagerness, "that you will have the time and inclination to see
my home and my work. Both have interesting features."
His
whole manner was so human, so engaging, that she was disconcerted anew, not an
easy emotion for her to experience. She shook off the weakness impatiently. Her
first words affirmed her purpose in visiting him. "Yes," she said,
"I shall be happy to see your home. I have been intending for some years
to visit you, but I have been so busy." She sighed. "The duties of
statecraft can be very onerous."
The
beautiful face looked properly sympathetic. A delicate hand pointed at the
dead body, which those slim fingers had been working over. The soft voice
informed that the purpose of the dissection was to discover the position
pattern of the organs and muscles and bones.
"I
have cut open dead mutations," Clane said, "and compared them with
normal bodies."
Lydia
could not quite follow the purpose. After all, each mutation was different,
depending upon the way the god forces had affected them. She said as much. The
glowing blue eyes of the mutation looked at her speculatively.
"It
is commonly known," he said, "that mutations
seldom five beyond the age of thirty. Naturally," he continued with a
faint smile, "since I am within six years of that milestone, the
possibility weighs upon me. Joquin, that astute old scientist, who
unfortunately is now dead, believed that the deaths resulted from inner
tensions, due to the manner in which mutations were treated by their fellows.
He felt that if those tensions could be removed, as they have been to some
extent in me, a normal span of life would follow as also would normal
intelligence. I'd better correct that. He believed that a mutation, given a
chance, would be able to realize his normal potentialities, which might be either super- or sub-normal
compared to human. beings."
Clane
smiled. "So far," he said, "I have noticed nothing out of the
ordinary in myself."
Lydia
thought of the boiling fountain, and felt a chill. That old fool, Joquin, she thought in a cold fury. Why didn't I pay more attention to what he
was doing? He's created an alien mind in our midst within striking distance of
the top of the power group of the empire.
The
sense of immense disaster possibilities grew. Death, she thought, within
hours after the old man is gone. No risks can be taken with this creature.
Suddenly,
she was interested in nothing but the accessibility of die various rooms of
the house to assassins. Clane seemed to realize her mood, for after a brief
tour of the laboratory, of which she remembered little, he began the journey
from room to room. Now, her eyes and attention sharpened. She peered into
doors, examined windows, and did not fail to note with satisfaction the
universal carpeting of the floors. Meerl would be able to attack without warning
sounds.
"And your
bedroom?" she asked finally.
"We're
coming to it," said Clane. "It's downstairs, adjoining the
laboratory. There's something else in the lab that I want to show you. I wasn't
sure at first that I would, but now"—his smile was angelic—"I
will."
The
corridor that led from the living room to the bedroom was almost wide enough
to be an anteroom. The walls were hung with drapes from floor to ceiling, which
was odd. Lydia, who had no inhibitions, lifted one drape, and peered under it. The waU was vaguely warm, like an ember, and it was
built of temple stone. She looked at Clane question-ingly.
"I have some god metals in the house.
Naturally, I am taking no chances. There's another corridor leading from the
laboratory to the bedroom."
What
interested Lydia was that neither door of the bedroom had either a lock or a
bolt on it. She thought about that tensely, as she followed Clane through the
ante-room that led to the laboratory. He wouldn't, it seemed to her, leave
himself so unprotected forever. The assassins must strike before he grew
alarmed, the sooner the better. Regretfully, she decided it would have to be
after Tews was confirmed as heir to the throne. She grew aware that Clane had
paused beside a dark box.
"Gelo
Greeant," he said, "brought this to me from one of his journeys into
the realms of the gods. I'm going to step inside, and you go around to the
right there, and look into the dark glass. You will be amazed."
Lydia
obeyed, puzzled. For a moment, after Clane had disappeared inside, the glass
remained dark. Then it began to glow faintly. She retreated
a step before that alien shin-ingness, then, remembering who she was, stood her
ground.
And then she screamed.
A
skeleton glowed through the glass. And the shadow of a beating heart, the
shadow of expanding and contracting lungs. As she watched, petrified now, the
skeleton arm moved, and seemed to come towards her, but drew back again. At
last comprehension came to her paralyzed brain.
She
was looking at the inside of a living human being. At Clane.
Abrupdy, that interested her. Clane. Like lightning, her eyes examined the bone structure. She noticed the
cluster of ribs around his heart and lungs, the special thickness of his collar
bones. Her gaze flashed down towards his kidneys, but this time she was too
slow. The light faded, and went out. Clane emerged from the box.
"Well,"
he asked, pleased, "what do you think of my little gift from the
gods?"
The
phraseology startled Lydia. All the way home she thought of
it. Gift from the gods! In a sense it was. The atom gods had sent their
mutation a method of seeing himself, for studying his own body. What could their purpose be? She had a conviction that, if the gods really existed, and
if, as seemed evident, they were helping Clane, then the deities of the atom
were again—as they had in legendary times—interfering with human affairs.
The
sinking sensation that came had only one hopeful rhythm. And that was like a
drumbeat inside her: Killl And soon. Soon.
But the days passed. And the demands of
political stability absorbed all her attention. Nevertheless, in the midst of
a score of new troubles, she did not forget Clane.
The
messenger from the Lord Leader inviting Tews' return arrived on the same ship
as another letter from his mother. Hers sounded as if it had been written in
breathless haste, but it contained an explanation of how his recall had been
accomplished. The price shocked Tews.
What, he thought, marry
Gudrun!
It
took an hour for his nerves to calm sufficiently for him even to consider the
proposition. His plan, it seemed to him finally, was too important to be
allowed to fail because of his distaste for a woman.
The
return of Tews was a triumph for his mother's diplomacy and a great moment for
himself. His ship came down in the square of the pillars, and there, before an
immense cheering throng, he was welcomed by the Lord Leader and the entire
patronate. The parade that followed was led by a unit of five thousand
glitteringly arrayed horse-mounted troops, followed by ten thousand foot
soldiers, one thousand engineers and scores of mechanical engines for throwing
weights and rocks at defensive barriers. Then came the
Lord Leader, Lydia and Tews, and the three hundred patrons and six hundred
knights of the empire. The rear of the parade was brought up by another cavalry
unit of five thousand men.
From the rostrum that jutted out from the
patronate building, the Lord Leader, his lion's voice undimmed by age, welcomed
his stepson. All the lies that had ever been told about the reason for Tews'
exile were coolly and grandly confirmed now. He had gone away to meditate. He
had wearied of the cunnings and artifices of government. He had returned only
after repeated pleadings on the part of his mother and of the Lord Leader.
"As
you know," concluded the Lord Leader, "seven years ago, I was bereft
of my natural heir in the moment of greatest military triumph the empire has
ever experienced, the conquest of the Martians. Today, as I stand before you,
no longer young, no longer able to bear the full weight of either military or
political command, it is an immeasurable relief to me to be able to tell the
people with confidence and conviction: Here in this modest and unassuming
member of my family, the son of my dear wife, Lydia, I ask you to put your
trust. To the soldiers I say, this is no weakling. Remember the Cimbri,
conquered under his skillful generalship when he was but a youth of
twenty-five. Particularly, I direct my words to the hard-pressed soldiers on
Venus, where false leaders have misled the island provinces of the fierce
Venusian tribes to an ill-fated rebellion. Ill-fated, I say, because as soon as
possible Tews will be there with the largest army assembled by the empire since
the war of the Martians. I am going to venture a prediction. I am going to
predict that within two years the Venusian leaders will be hanging on long lines
of posts of the type they are now using to murder prisoners. I predict that
these hangings will be achieved by Co-Lord Leader General
Tews, whom I now publicly appoint my heir and successor, and on whose behalf I
now say, take warning, all those who would have ill
befall the empire. Here is the man who will confound you and your
schemes."
The
dazzled Tews, who had been advised by his mother to the extent of the victory
she had won for him, stepped forward to acknowledge the cheers and to say a few
words. "Not too much," his mother had warned him. "Be noncommittal."
But Lord Tews had other plans. He had carefully thought out the pattern of his
future actions, and he had one announcement to make, in addition to a ringing
acceptance of the military leadership that had been offered him, and a promise
that the Venusian leaders would indeed suffer the fate which the Linn of Linn
had promised them, the announcement had to do with the title of co-Lord Leader,
which had been bestowed on him.
"I
am sure," he told the crowd, "that you will agree with me that the
title of Lord Leader belongs uniquely to the first and greatest man of Linn. I
therefore request, and will hold it mandatory upon government leaders, that I
be addressed as Lord Adviser. It shall be my pleasure to act as adviser to
both the Lord Leader and the patronate, and it is in this role that I wish to
be known henceforth to the people of the mighty Linnan empire.
Thank you for listening to me, and I now advise you that there will be games
for three days in the bowls, and that free food will be served throughout the
city during that time at my expense. Go and have a good time, and may the gods
of the atoms bring you all good luck."
During
the first minute after he had finished, Lydia was appalled. Was Tews mad to
have refused the title of Lord Leader? The joyful yelping of the mob soothed
her a little, and then, slowly, as she followed Tews and the old man along the
promenade that led from the rostrum to the palace gates, she began to realize
the cleverness of the new title. Lord Adviser. Why, it would be a veritable
shield against the charges of those who were always striving to rouse the
people against the absolute government of the Linns. It was clear that the long
exile had sharpened rather than dulled the mind of her son.
The
Lord Leader, too, as the days passed and the new character of Tews came to the
fore, was having regrets. Certain restrictions, which he had imposed upon his
stepson during his residence on Awai, seemed unduly severe and ill-advised in
retrospect.
It
seemed to him now that there was only one solution. He rushed the marriage
between Tews and Gudrun, and then dispatched them to Venus on their honeymoon,
taking the precaution of sending a quarter of a million men along, so that the
future Lord Leader could combine his holiday with war-making.
Having
solved his main troubles, the Lord Leader gave himself up to the chore of aging
gracefully and of thinking out way and means whereby his other heirs might be
spared from the death which the thoughtful Lydia was undoubtedly planning for
them.
All
too soon, despite his own and his physicians' precautions, the Lord Leader
sank into his final illness. He lay in his bed of pillows sweating out his last
hours. All the wiles of the palace physician—including an ice-cold bath, a
favorite remedy of his—failed to rally the stricken great man. In a few hours,
the patronate was informed, and state leaders were invited to officiate at the
death bed. The Linn of Linn had some years before introduced a law that no
ruler was ever to be allowed to die incommunicado.
It
was a thoughtful precaution against poisoning which he had considered extremely
astute at the rime, but which now, as he watched the crowds surging outside the
open doors of his bedroom, and listened to the subdued roar of voices, seemed
somewhat less than dignified.
He
motioned to Lydia. She came gliding over, and nodded
at his request that the door be closed. Some of the people in the bedroom
looked at each other, as she shooed them away, but the mild voice of the Lord
Leader urged them, and so they trooped out. It took about ten minutes to clear
the room. The Lord Leader lay, then, looking sadly up at his wife. He had an
unpleasant duty to perform, and the unfortunate atmosphere of imminent death
made the affair not less but more sordid. He began without preliminary.
"In
recent years I have frequently hinted to you about fears I have had about the
health of my relatives. Your reactions have left me no recourse but to doubt
that you now have left in your heart any of the tender feelings which are
supposed to be the common possession of womankind."
"What's this?" said Lydia. She had
her first flash of insight as to what was coming. She said grimly, "My
dear husband, have you gone out of your head?"
The
Lord Leader continued calmly: "For once, Lydia, I am not going to speak in
diplomatic language. Do not go through with your plans to have my relatives
assassinated as soon as I am dead."
The
language was too strong for the woman. The color deserted her cheeks, and she
was suddenly as pale as lead. "I," she breathed, "kill your
kin!"
The
once steel-gray, now watery eyes stared at her with remorseless purpose.
"I haye put Jerrin and Draid beyond your reach. They are in command of
powerful armies, and my will leaves explicit instructions about their future.
And my two daughters are safe, I think. The elder is without ambition, and
Gudrun is now the wife of Tews. But I want a promise from you that you will not
harm the Lady Tania, her two daughters, and her son, Lord Clane."
"Clane!"
said Lydia. Her mind had started working as he talked. It leaped past the
immense insult she was being offered, past all the names, to that one
individual. She spoke the name again, more loudly.
"Clane!"
Her
eyes were distorted pools. She glared at her husband with a bitter intensity.
"And what," she said, "makes you think, you who suspect me
capable of such crimes, that I would keep such a promise to a dead man?"
The
old man was suddenly less bleak. "Because, Lydia," he said quietly,
"you are more than just a mother protecting her young. You also are a
leader whose political sagacity and general intelligence made possible the
virtually united empire, which Tews will now inherit. You are at heart an
honest woman, and if you made me a promise I think you would keep it."
She
knew he was merely hoping now. And her calmness came back. She watched him with
bright eyes, conscious of how weak was the power of a
dying man, no matter how desperately he strove to fasten his desires and wishes
upon his descendants.
"Very
well, my old darling," she soothed him, "I will make you the promise
you wish. I guarantee not to murder any of these people you have
mentioned."
The
Lord Leader gazed at her in despair. He had, he realized, not remotely touched
her. This woman's basic integrity—and he knew it was there—could no longer be
reached through her emotions. He abandoned that line immediately.
"Lydia,"
he said, "don't anger Clane by trying to kill him."
"Anger
him!" said Lydia. She spoke sharply, because the phrase was so unexpected.
She gazed at her husband with a startled wonder, as if she couldn't be quite
sure that she had heard him correctly. She repeated the words slowly, listening
to them as if she somehow might catch their secret meaning.
"Anger him?"
"You
must realize," said the Lord Leader, "that you have some fifteen or
twenty years of life to endure after my death, provided you hoard your physical
energies. If you spend those years trying to run the world through Tews, you
will quickly and quite properly be discarded by him. That is something which is
not yet clear to you, and so I advise you to reorientate yourself. You must
seek your power through other men. Jerrin will not need you, and Draid needs
only Jerrin. Tews can and will dispense with you. That leaves Clane, of the
great men. He can use you. Through him, therefore, you will be able to retain a
measure of your power."
Her
gaze was on his mouth every moment that he talked. She listened as his voice
grew weaker, and finally trailed into nothingness. In the silence that fell
between them, Lydia sat comprehending at last, so it seemed to her. This was
Clane talking through his dying grandfather.
This was Clane's cunning appeal to the fears
she might have for her own future. The Clane who had frustrated her designs on
the slave girl, Selk, was now desperately striving to anticipate her designs on
him.
Deep
inside her, as she sat there watching the old man die, she laughed. Three
months before, recognizing the signals of internal disintegration in her
husband, she had insisted that Tews be recalled from Venus, and Jerrin appointed
in his place. Her skill in timing was now bearing fruit, and it was working out
even better than she had hoped. It would be at least a week before Tews'
spaceship would arrive in Linn. During that week the widow Lydia would be
all-powerful.
It
was possible that she would have to abandon her plans against some of the other
members of the family. But they at least were human. It was Clane, the alien,
the creature, the nonhuman, who must be destroyed at any cost. She had one week
in which she could, if necessary, use three whole legions and a hundred
spaceships to smash him and the gods that had made him.
The long, tense conversation had dimmed the
spark of life in the Lord Leader. Ten minutes before sunset, the great throngs
outside saw the gates open, and Lydia leaning on the arms of two old patrons
slowly walked out, followed by a crowd of noblemen. In a moment it was general
knowledge that the Linn of Linn was dead.
13
lydia wakened lazily on the morrow after the death of the
Lord Leader. Bright sunlight was pouring through open windows, and Dalat
hovered at the end of the bed. "You asked to be awakened early, honorable
lady," she said.
There was a note of respect in her voice that
Lydia had never noticed before. Her mind poised, pondering the imponderable
difference. And then she got it. The Linn was dead. For one week she was not
the legal but the de
facto head of the city and
state. None would dare oppose the mother of the new leader—uh, the Lord Adviser
Tews. Glowing, Lydia sat up in bed. "Has there been any word yet from
Meerl?"
"None,
gracious lady."
She
frowned over that. It was rather surprising that he to
whom she had intrusted such an important errand, should not have reported long
since.
Dalat
was speaking again. "I think, madam, you should inform him, however, that it is unwise for him to have parcels delivered here
addressed to himself in your care."
Lydia
was climbing out of bed. She looked up, astounded and angry. "Why, the
insolent fool, has he done that? Let me see the parcel."
She
tore off the wrapping, furiously, and found herself staring down at a vase
filled with ashes. A note was tied around the lip of the vase. Puzzled, she
turned it over and read:
Dear Madam:
Your assassin was too moist. The atom gods,
once roused, become frantic in the presence of moisture.
Uranium,
For the council of gods
Crash! The sound of the vase smashing on the floor shocked her out of a blur of
numbness. Wide-eyed she stared down at the little pile of ashes amid the broken
pieces of pottery. How could Meerl have failed? Meerl, the cautious, the
skillful, Meerl the bold and brave and daring!
"Dalat!"
"Yes, lady?"
With narrowed eyes and pursed lips Lydia
considered the action she was contemplating. But not for
long. "Call Colonel Maljan. Tell him to
come at once." She had one week to kill a man. And it was time to come out
into the open.
Lydia had herself carried to the foot of the
hill that led up to the estate of Lord Clane. She wore a heavy veil and used as
carriers slaves who had never appeared with her in public, and an old unmarked
chair of one of her ladies-in-waiting. Her eyes, that peered
out of this excellent disguise, were bright with excitement.
The
morning was unnaturally hot. Blasts of warm air came sweeping down the hill
from the direction of Clane's house. And, after a little, she saw that the
soldiers a hundred yards up the hill, had stopped. The
pause grew long and puzzling, and she was just about to climb out of her chair,
when she saw Maljan coming towards her. The darkeyed, hawknosed officer was
sweating visibly.
"Madam,"
he said, "we cannot get near that fence. It seems to be on fire."
"I can see no flame."
"It isn't that kind of a fire."
Lydia
was amazed to see that the man was trembling with fright.
"There's
something unnatural up there," he said. "I don't like it."
She
came out of the chair then, the chill of defeat settling upon her. "Are
you an idiot?" she snarled. "If you can't get past
the fence, drop men from spaceships into the grounds."
"I've already sent for them," he
said, "but—" "But!"
said Lydia, and it was a
curse. "I'll go up and have a look at that fence myself."
She
went up, and stopped short where the soldiers were gasping on the ground. The
heat had already blasted at her, but at that point it took her breath away. She
felt as if her lungs would sear inside her. In a moment her throat was ash dry.
She stepped behind a bush. But it was no good.
She
saw that the leaves had seared and darkened. And then she was retreating behind
a little knoblike depression in the hill. She crouched behind it, too appalled
to think. She grew aware of Maljan working up towards her. He arrived, gasping,
and it was several seconds before he could speak. Then he pointed up. "The
ships," he said.
She
watched them creep in low over the trees. They listed a little as they crossed
the fence, then sank out of sight and disappeared behind the trees that hid the
meadow of Clane's estate. Five ships in all came into sight and disappeared
over the rim of the estate. Lydia was keenly aware that their arrival relieved
the soldiers sprawling helplessly all around her.
"Tell
the men to get down the hill," she commanded hoarsely, and made the
hastiest retreat of all. The street below was still almost deserted. A few
people had paused to watch in a puzzled fashion the activities of the soldiers,
but they moved on when commanded to do so by the guards who had been posted in
the road. It was something to know that the campaign was still a private
affair.
She
waited. No sound came from behind the trees where the ships had gone. It was as
if they had fallen over some precipice into an abyss of silence. Half an hour
went by, and then, abruptly, a ship came into sight. Lydia caught her breath, then watched the machine float towards them over the trees,
and settle in the road below. A man in uniform came out. Maljan waved at him,
and ran over to meet him. The conversation that followed was very earnest. At
last Maljan turned, and with evident reluctance came towards her. He said in a
low tone: "The house itself is offering an impregnable heat barrier. But
they have talked to Lord Clane. He wants to speak to you."
She
took that with a tense thoughtfulness. The realization had already penetrated
deep that this stalemate might go on for days.
If I could get near him, she decided, remorselessly, by pretending to consider his proposals-It seemed to work perfectly. By the time the
spaceship lifted her over the fence, the heat that exuded from the walls of the
house had died away to a bearable temperature. And, incredibly, Clane agreed
that she could bring a dozen soldiers into the house as guards. As she entered,
she had her first sense of eeriness. There was no one around,
not a slave, not a movement of life. She headed in the direction of the
bedroom, more slowly with each step. The first grudging admiration came. It
seemed unbelievable that his preparations could have been so thorough as to
include the evacuation of all his slaves. And yet it all fitted. Not once in
her dealings with him had he made a mistake.
"Grandmother, I
wouldn't come any closer."
She
stopped short. She saw that she had come to within a yard of the corridor that
led to his bedroom. Clane was standing at the far end, and he seemed to be
quite alone and undefended.
"Come
any nearer," he said, "and death will strike you automatically."
She
could see nothing unusual. The corridor was much as she remembered it. The
drapes had been taken down from the walls, revealing the temple stone
underneath. And yet, standing there, she felt a faint warmth, unnatural and,
suddenly, deadly. It was only with an effort that she threw off the feeling.
She
parted her lips to give the command, but Clane spoke first.
"Grandmother,
do nothing rash. Consider, before you defy the powers of the atom. Has what
happened today not yet penetrated to your intelligence? Surely, you can see
that whom the gods love no mortal can destroy."
The
woman was bleak with her purpose. "You have misquoted the old
saying," she said. "Whom the gods love die
young."
And yet, once more, she hesitated. The
stunning thing was that he continued to stand there less than thirty feet away,
unarmed, unprotected, a faint smile on his lips. How far he has come, she
thought. His nervous affliction, conquered now. And what a marvelously
beautiful face, so calm, so confident.
Confident! Could it be that there were gods? Could
it be?
"Grandmother,
I warn you, make no move. If you must prove that the
gods will strike on my behalf, send your soldiers. But do not move yourself."
She
felt weak, her legs numb. The conviction that was pouring through her, the
certainty that he was not bluffing brought a parallel realization that she
could not back down.
And yet she must.
She
recognized that there was insanity in her terrible indecision. And knew, then, that she was not a person who was capable of
conscious suicide. Therefore, quit, retreat, accept
the reality of rout. She parted her Hps to give the order to retire when it
happened.
What
motive impelled the soldier to action was never clear. Perhaps he grew
impatient. Perhaps he felt "there would be promotion for him. Whatever the
reason, he suddenly cried out, "111 get his gizzard for you!" And leaped forward. He went only a few feet past Lydia when
he began to disintegrate. He crumpled like an empty sack. Where he had been, a
mist of ashes floated lazily to the floor. There was one burst of heat, then.
It came in a gust of unearthly hot wind, barely touched Lydia, who had
instinctively jerked aside, but struck the soldiers behind her. There was a
hideous masculine squealing and whimpering, followed by a mad scramble. A door
slammed, and she was alone. She straightened,
conscious that the air from the corridor was still blowing hot. She remained
cautiously where she was, and called.
"Clane!"
The answer came instantly. "Yes,
grandmother?"
For a moment, then, she hesitated,
experiencing all the agony of a general
about to surrender. At last, slowly, "What do you want?"
"An end to attacks on me. Full political co-operation, but people must
remain unaware of it as long as we can possibly manage it."
"Oh!"
She began to breath
easier. She had had a fear that he would demand public recognition. "And
if I don't?" she said at last. "Death!"
It
was quietly spoken. The woman did not even think to doubt. She was being given
a chance. But there was one thing more. One tremendous thing
more.
"Clane, is your
ultimate goal the Lord Leadership?"
"No!"
His
answer was too prompt. She felt a thrill of disbelief, a sick conviction that he was lying. But she was glad after a moment that
he had denied. In a sense it bound him. Her thoughts soared to all the
possibilities of the situation, then came down again
to the sober necessity of this instant.
"Very
well," she said, and it was little more than, a sigh. "I
accept."
It
was only then that it struck her that she was now in the exact position that
her dead husband had advised for her own safety and well-being.
Tears, and
the realization of her great loss' came as late as that.
On
the tomb of the Lord Leader, the nation of Linn authorized a tribute never
before given any man:
medron
linn father of the empire
in high government and military circles in Linn and
on Venus, the succession of battles with the Venusian tribesmen of the three central
islands were called by their proper name: war! For propaganda purposes, the
word, rebellion, was paraded at every opportunity. It was a necessary illusion.
The enemy fought with the ferocity of a people who had tasted slavery. To rouse
the soldiery to an equal pitch of anger and hatred there was nothing that quite
matched the term, rebel.
Men
who had faced hideous dangers in the swamps and marshes could scarcely restrain
themselves at the thought that traitors to the empire were causing all the trouble.
Lord Jerrin, an eminently fair man, who admired a bold and resourceful
opponent, for once made no attempt to discourage the false impression. He
recognized that the Lin-nans were the oppressors, and at times it made him
physically ill that so many men must die to enforce a continued subjection.
But he recognized, also, that there was no alternative.
The
Venusians were the second most dangerous race in the solar system, second only
to the Linnans. The two peoples had fought each other for three hundred and
fifty years, and it was not until armies of Raheinl had landed on Uxta, the
main island of Venus some forty years before that a victory of any proportions
was scored. The young military genius was only eighteen at the time of the
battle of the Casuna Marsh. Swift conquest of two other islands followed, but
then his dazzled followers in Linn provoked the civil war that finally ended
after nearly eight years in the execution of Raheinl by the Lord Leader. The
latter proceeded with a cold ferocity to capture four more island strongholds
of the Venusians.' In each one he set up a separate government, revived old
languages, suppressed the common language—and so strove to make the islanders
think of themselves as separate peoples.
For
years they seemed to be—and then, abruptly, in one organized uprising they
seized the principal cities of the five main islands. And
discovered that the Lord Leader had been more astute than they imagined.
The military strongholds were not in the cities, as they had assumed, and as
their spies had reported. The centers of Linnan power were located in an
immense series of small forts located in the marshes. These forts had always
seemed weak outposts, designed to discourage raiders rather than rebellions.
And no Venusian had ever bothered to count the number of them. The showy city
forts, which were elaborately attacked, turned out to be virtual hollow shells.
By the time the Venusians rallied to attack the forts in the marshes it was too
late for the surprise to be effective. Reinforcements were on the way from
Earth. What had been planned as an all-conquering coup became a drawn-out war.
And long ago, the awful empty feeling had come to the Venusians that they
couldn't win.
The
situation was actually much more involved than it appeared. Some six months
before, the prospect of an imminent triumph for Jerrin had penetrated to the
Lord Adviser Tews. He pondered the situation with a painful understanding of
how the emotions of the crowd might be seduced by so momentous a victory. His
own liberal plans, which he continued to tell himself that he cherished—though
they had become vaguer—might be threatened. After considerable thought he
ressurrected a request from Jerrin for reinforcements, which had been made
more than a year before. At the time Tews had considered it inexpedient to
hasten the Venusian war to a quick end, b,ut second
thought brought an idea. With a pomp of public concern
for Jerrin he presented the request to the patronate and added his urgent
recommendations that at least three legions be assembled to assist "our
hard-pressed forces against a skillful and cunning enemy."
He could have added, but didn't, that he intended to deliver the reinforcements and so participate in the
victory. The patronate would not dare to refuse to vote him a triumph co-equal
with that already being planned for Jerrin. He discussed his projected trip
with his mother, the Lady Lydia, and, in accordance with her political
agreement with Clane, she duly passed the information on to the mutation. Lydia
had no sense of betraying her son. She had no such intention. But she knew that
the fact that Tews was going to Venus would soon be common knowledge, and so,
sardonically, she reported to Clane less than two weeks before Tews was due to
leave.
His
reaction startled her. The very next day he requested an audience with Tews.
And the latter, who had adopted an affable manner with the late Lord Leader's
grandchildren, did not think of refusing Clane's request for permission to
organize an expedition to Venus.
15
at fibst the land was a shadow seen through mist. As the
three spaceships of Lord Clane Linn's expedition settled through the two
thousand mile atmosphere, the blurriness went out of the scene. Mountains looking
like maps rather than territories took form. The vast sea to the north sank
beyond the far horizon of swamps and marshes, hills and forests. The reality grew wilder and wilder, but the pit was directly
ahead now, an enormous black hole in the long narrow plain.
The
ships settled to the ground on a green meadow half a mile from the nearest edge
of the pit, which lay to the northeast. Some six hundred men and women, three
hundred of them slaves, emerged from the vessels, and a vast amount of
equipment was unloaded. By nightfall habitations had been erected for Clane,
for two knights and three temple scientists and five scholars not connected
with a religious organization. In addition, a corral had been built for the
slaves, and" the two companies of soldiers were encamped in a half circle
around the main camp.
Sentries
were posted, and the spaceships withdrew to a height of about five hundred
feet. All night long, a score of fires, tended by trusted slaves, brightened
the darkness. Dawn came uneventfully, and slowly the camp took up the
activities of a new day. Clane did not remain to direct it. Immediately after
breakfast, horses were saddled; and he and twenty-five men, including a dozen
armed soldiers, set out for the nearby home of the gods.
They
were all rank unbelievers, but they had proceeded only a few hundred yards when
Clane noticed that one of the riders was very pale. He reined up beside him.
"Breakfast
upset you?" he asked gently. "Better go back to camp and rest
today."
Most
of those who were destined to continue watched the lucky man trot off out of
sight into the brush.
The
evenness of the land began to break. Gashes opened in the earth at their feet,
and ran off at a slant towards the pit, which was still not visible beyond the
trees. % Straight were those gashes, too straight, as if long ago
irresistible objects had hurtled up out of the pit each at a different angle,
each tearing the intervening earth as it darted up out of the hell below.
Clane
had a theory about the pits. Atomic warfare by an
immeasurably superior civilization. Atomic bombs that set up a reaction
in the ground where they landed, and only gradually wore themselves out in the
resisting soil, concrete and steel of vast cities. For centuries the remnants
roiled and flared with deadly activity. How long? No one knew. He had an idea,
that if star maps of the period could be located an estimate of the time gap
might be possible. The period involved must be very great, for several men that
he knew had visited pits on Earth without ill effects.
Clane's
reverie died down. A soldier in front of him let out a shout, reined in his
horse and pointed ahead. Clane urged his horse up to the rise on top of which
the man had halted. And reined in his
horse. He was looking down a gently
sloping grassy embankment. It ran along for about a hundred feet. And then
there was a low concrete wall.
Beyond was the pit.
At
first they were careful. They used the shelter of the wall as a barrier to any
radiation that might be coming up from below. Clane was the exception. From the
beginning he stood upright, and peered downward through his glasses into the
vista of distance below. Slowly the others lost their caution, and finally all
except two artists were standing boldly on their feet gazing into the most
famous home of the gods.
It
was not a clear morning. A faint mist crawled along hiding most of the bottom
of the pit. But it was possible, with the aid of the glasses, to make out
contours, and to see the far precipice nearly seven miles away.
About
midmoming, the mists cleared noticeably, and the great sun of Venus shone down
into the hole, picking out every detail not hidden by distance. The artists,
who had .already sketched the main outlines, settled
down to work in earnest. They had been selected for their ability to draw maps,
and the watchful Clane saw that they were doing a good job. His own patience, product of his isolated upbringing, was
even greater than theirs. All through that day he examined the bottom of the
pit with his glasses, and compared the reality with the developing drawings on
the drawing boards.
The
following morning Clane signaled one of the spaceships to come down, and,
shortly after breakfast, the two temple scientists, one knight, three artists,
a dozen soldiers, a crew of fifteen and he climbed aboard. The ship floated
lightiy clear of the ground.
The
site of the landing was selected by Clane after consultation with the knights
and the scientists. From the air, it appeared to be a large concrete structure
with roof and walls still intact, but its main feature was that it was located
near one of the routes by which the people on foot could leave the pit. And it
was surrounded by more than a score of the cavelike openings.
The
spaceship came down without incident, and the ah lock
was opened immediately. Stepping to the edge of the door, Clane had an
impression of intense silence. He lowered himself over the edge, and for the
first time stood on ground that, until now, he had seen only from a distance.
The other men began to scramble down after him, and there was a pleasurable
sound of activity, breaking the stillness. The morning air quickly echoed to
the uproar of a hundred men breathing, walking, moving—and unloading supplies.
Less
than an hour after he first set foot into the soft soil of the pit, Clane
watched the spaceship lift from the ground, and climb rapidly up about five
hundred feet. At that height it leveled off, and began its watchful cruise back
and forth above the explorers.
Shortly
before noon, after an early lunch, Clane, one knight, one temple scientist and
six soldiers left the encampment and walked toward the "building"
which, among other things, had attracted them to the area. Seen from this near
vantage point it was not a building at all, but an upjutment of concrete and
metal, a remnant of what had once been a man-made burrow into depths of the
earth, a monument to the futility of seeking safety by mechanical rather than
intellectual and moral means. The sight of it depressed Clane. For a millennium
it had stood here, first in a seething ocean of unsettled energy, and now amid
a great silence it waited for the return of man.
His
own estimate of the time that had gone by since the great war
was of the order of 8,000 years. He had enough data from other pits concerning
the calendar system of the ancients to guess that by their reckoning,
present-day Linn was existing in 12,000 A.D.
He
paused to examine a partly open door, then motioned
two soldiers to push at it. They were unable to budge it, and so, waving them
aside, he edged gingerly past the rusted door jamb. He found himself in a
narrow hallway, which ran along for about eight feet, and then there was
another door. A closed door this time. The floor was
concrete, the walls and ceiling concrete, but the door was metal. Clane and the
knight, a big man with black eyes, shoved it open with scarcely an effort,
though it creaked rustily as they did.
They
stood there, startled. The interior was not dark as they expected, but dimly
lighted. The luminous glow came from a series of small bulbs in the ceiling.
The bulbs were not transparent, but coated with an opaque coppery substance.
The light shone through the coating. Nothing like it had ever been seen in Linn
or elsewhere. After a blank period, Clane wondered if the lights had turned on
when they opened the door. They discussed it briefly, then
shut the door. Nothing happened. They opened the door again, but the lights did
not even flicker. They had obviously been burning for centuries.
With
a genuine effort, he suppressed the impulse to have the treasures taken down
immediately and carried to the camp.
The
deathly silence, the air of immense antiquity brought the same realization that
there was no necessity to act swiftly here. He was first on this scene. Slowly,
almost reluctantly, he turned his attention from the ceiling to the room
itself. A wrecked table stood in one corner. In front of it was a chair with
one leg broken and a single strand of wood where the seat had been. In the
adjoining corner was a pile of nibble, including a skull and some vaguely
recognizable ribs which merged into a powdery skeleton. The relic of what had
once been a human being lay on top of a rather long, all-metal rod. There was
nothing else in the room. Clane strode forward and eased the rod from under the
skeleton. The movement, slight though it was, was too much for the bone
structure. The skull and ribs dissolved into powder, and faint white mist
hovered for a moment, then settled to the floor. He
stepped back gingerly, and, still holding the rod, passed through the door, and
along the narrow hallway, and so out into the open.
16
tews took up his quarters.Jn the palace of the
long-dead Venusian emperor, Heerkel, across town from the military headquarters
of Jerrin. It was an error of the kind that startles and starts history. The
endless parade of generals and other officers that streamed in and out of Mered
passed him by. A few astute individuals made a point of taking the long journey
across the city, but even some of these were in obvious haste, and could
scarcely tolerate the slow ceremoniousness of an interview with their ruler.
A
great war was being fought. Officers in from the front line took it for granted
that their attitude would be understood. They felt remote from the peaceful
pomp of Linn itself. Only the men who had occasion to make trips to Earth
comprehended the vast indifference of the population to the war on Venus. To
the people at home it was a faraway frontier affair. Such engagements had been
fought continuously from the time of their childhood, only every once in a
while the scene changed.
His
virtual isolation sharpened the suspicions with which Tews had landed. And frightened him. He hadn't realized how widespread was the disaffection. The plot must be well advanced, so
advanced that thousands of- officers knew about it, and were taking no chances
on being caught with the man who, they must have decided, would be the loser.
They probably looked around them at the enormous armies under the command of
Jerrin. And knew that no one could defeat the man who had
achieved the loyalty of so many legions of superb soldiers.
Swift,
decisive action, it seemed to Tews, was essential. When Jerrin paid him a
formal visit a week after his arrival, he was startled at the cold way in which
Tews rejected his request that the reinforcements be sent to the front for a
final smashing drive against the marsh-bound armies of the Venusians.
"And
what," said Tews, noting with satisfaction the other's disconcertment,
"would you do should you gain the victory which
you anticipate?"
The subject of the question, rather than the
tone, encouraged the startled Jerrin. He had had many thoughts about the shape
of the coming victory, and after a moment he decided that that was actually why
Tews had come to Venus, to discuss the political aspects of conquest. The older
man's manner he decided to attribute to Tews' assumption of power. This was
the new leader's way of reacting to his high position.
Briefly,
Jerrin outlined his ideas. Execution of certain leaders
directly responsible for the policy of murdering prisoners, enslavement only of
those men who had participated intimately in the carrying out of the
executions. But all the rest to be allowed to live
without molestation, and in fact to return to their homes in a normal fashion.
At first each island would be administered as a separate colony, but even
during the first phase the common language would be restored and free trade
permitted among the islands. The second phase, to begin in about five years,
and widely publicized in advance, should be the establishment of responsible
government on the separate islands, but those governments would be part of the
empire, and would support the occupation troops. The third phase should start
ten years after that, and would include the organization of one central
all-Venusian administration for the islands, with a federal system of
government.
And
this system, also, would have no troops of its own, and would be organized
entirely within the framework of the empire.
Five
years later, the fourth and final phase could begin. All families with a
twenty-year record of achievement and loyalty could apply for Linnan-Venusian
citizenship, with all the privileges and opportunities for self-advancement
fhat went with it.
"It
is sometimes forgotten," said Jerrin, "that Linn began as a
city-state, which conquered neighboring cities, and held its power in them by a
gradual extension of citizenship. There is no reason why this system should not
be extended to the planets with equal success." He finished, "All
around us is proof that the system of absolute subjection employed during the
past fifty years had been a complete failure. The time has come for new and
more progressive statesmanship."
Tews
almost stood up in his agitation, as he listened to the scheme. He could see
the whole picture now. The late Lord Leader had in effect willed the planets to
Jerrin; and this was Jerrin's plan for welding his inheritance into a powerful
military stronghold, capable, if necessary, of conquering Linn itself.
Tews
smiled a cold smile. Not
yet, Jerrin, he
thought, I'm
still absolute ruler, and for three years what I say is what will happen.
Besides, your plan might interfere with my determination to re-establish the
republic at an opportune moment. I'm pretty sure that you, with all your
liberalistic talk, have no intention of restoring constitutional government.
It is that ideal that must be maintained at all costs.
Aloud,
he said, "I will take your recommendations under advisement. But now, it
is my wish that in future all promotions be channeled through me. Any commands
that you issue to commanding officers in the field are to be sent here for my
perusal, and I will send them on." He finished with finality, "The
reason for this is that I wish to familiarize myself with the present positions
of all units and with the names of the men in charge of them. That is all. It
has been a privilege to have had this conversation with you. Good day,
sir."
Move
number one was as drastic as that. It was only the beginning. As the orders and
documents began to arrive, Tews studied them with the assiduity of a clerk. His
mind reveled in paper work, and the excitement of his purpose made every detail
important and interesting. He knew this Venusian war. For two years he had sat
in a palace some hundred miles farther back, and acted the role of commander-in-chief,
now filled by Jerrin. His problem, therefore, did not include the necessity of
learning the situation from the beginning. He had merely to familiarize himself
with the developments during the past year and a half. And, while numerous,
they were not insurmountable.
From
the first day, he was able to accomplish his primary purpose: replacement of
doubtful officers with one after another of the horde of sycophants he had
brought with him from Linn. Tews felt an occasional twinge of shame at the
device, but he justified it on the grounds of necessity. A man contending with
conspiring generals must take recourse to devious means. The important thing
was to make sure that the army was not used against himself, the Lord Adviser,
the lawful heir of Linn, the only man whose ultimate purposes were not
autocratic and selfish.
As a
secondary precaution, he altered several of Jerrin's troop dispositions. These
had to do with legions that Jferrin had brought with him from Mars, and which
presumably might be especially loyal to him personally. It would be just as
well" if he didn't know their exact location during the next few critical
weeks.
On
the twelfth day he received from a spy the information for which he had been
waiting. Jerrin, who had gone to the front on an inspection tour two Jays
before, was returning to Mered. Tews actually had only an hour's warning. He
was still setting the stage for the anticipated interview when Jerrin was
announced. Tews smiled at the assembled courtiers.
He
said in a loud voice, "Inform his excellency that I am engaged at the
moment but that if he will wait a little I shall be happy to receive him."
The
remark, together with the knowing smile that went with it, started a flutter of
sensation through the room. It was unfortunate that Jerrin had failed to wait
for his message to be delivered, but was already halfway across the room. He
did not pause until he was standing in front of Tews. The latter regarded him
with indolent insolence.
"Well, what is
it?"
Jerrin
said quietly, "It is my unpleasant duty, my Lord Adviser, to inform you
that it will be necessary to evacuate all civilians from Mered without delay.
As a result of rank carelessness on the part of certain front-line officers,
the Venusians have achieved a breakthrough north of the city. There will be
fighting in Mered before morning."
Some
of the ladies, and not a few of the gentlemen who were
present uttered alarmed noises, and there was a general movement towards exits.
A bellow from Tews stopped the disgraceful stampede. He settled heavily back in
his chair
"I
hope," he said, "that the negligent officers have been properly
punished."
"Thirty-seven
of them," said Jerrin, "have been executed. Here is a fist of their
names, which you might examine at your leisure.
Tews
sat up. "Executed!" He had a sudden awful
suspicion that Jerrin would not lightly have executed men who had long been
under his command. With a jerk he tore the seal from the document and glanced
rapidly down the column. Every name on it was that of one of his satellite-replacements
of the past twelve days.
Very
slowly he raised his eyes, and stared at the younger man. Their gaze met and
held. The flinty blue eyes of
Tews
glared with an awful rage. The steel gray eyes of Jerrin were remorseless with
contempt and disgust. "Your most gracious
excellency," he said in a soft voice, "one of my Martian legions has
been cut to pieces. The carefully built-up strategy and envelopment of the past
year is wiped out. Jt is my opinion that the men responsible for that had
better get off Venus, and back to their pleasures in Linn— or what they feared
so foolishly will really transpire."
He
realized immediately it was a wild statement. His words stiffened Tews. For a
moment the big man's heavy face was a mask of tensed anger, then
with a terrible effort he suppressed his fury. He straightened.
"In
view of the seriousness of the situation," he said, "I will remain in
Mered and take charge of the forces on this front until further notice. You
will surrender your headquarters to my officers immediately."
"If
your officers," said Jerrin, "come to my headquarters, they will be
whipped into the streets. And that applies to anyone from this section of the city,"
He
turned and walked out of the room. He had no clear idea as to what he was going
to do about the fantastic crisis that had arisen.
17
clane spent those three weeks, when the Venusian front
was collapsing, exploring a myriad of holes in the pit. He moved his entire
party into the pit for safety. Guards were posted at the three main routes
leading down into the abyss, and two spaceships maintained a continuous vigil
over the countryside around the pit, and over the pit itself. These precautions
were not a complete guarantee of safety, but they added up fairly well. Any
attempt of a large body of troops to come down and attack the camp would be
such an involved affair that there would be plenty of time to embark everyone
on spaceships, and depart.
Daily
one of the spaceships made the trip to Mered, and when it returned to the
depths of the pit Clane would go aboard and knock on door after door. Each time
he would be cautiously admitted by a man or a woman, and the two would hold a
private conference. His spies never saw each other. They were -always returned
to Mered at dusk, and landed one by one in various parts of the city.
The
spies were not all mercenaries. There were men in the highest walks of the
empire who regarded the Linn mutation as the logical heir of the late Lord
Leader. To them Tews was merely a stopgap who could be put out of the way at
the proper time. Again and again, such individuals, who belonged to other
groups, had secretly turncoated after meeting Clane, and become valuable
sources of information for him. Clane knew his situation better than his
well-wishers. However much he might impress intelligent people, the fact was
that a mutation could not become ruler of the empire. Long ago, accordingly, he
had abandoned some early ambitions in that direction, retaining only two main
political purposes.
He
was alive and in a position of advantage because his family was one of the
power groups in Linn. Though he had no friends among his own kin, he was
tolerated by them because of the blood relationship. It was to his interest
that they remained in high position. In crises he must do everything possible
to help them. That was purpose number one.
Purpose
number two was to participate in some way in all the major political moves made
in the Linnan empire, and it was rooted in an ambition
that he could never hope to realize. He wanted to be a general. War in its
practical aspects, as he had observed it from afar, seemed to him crude and
unintelligent. From early childhood he
had studied battle strategy and tactics with the intention of reducing the
confusion to a point where battles could be won by little more than
irresistible maneuver.
He
arrived in Mered on the day following the clash between Tews and Jerrin, and
took up residence in a house which he had long ago thoughtfully reserved for
himself and his retinue. He made the move as unobtrusively as possible, but he
did not delude himself that his coming would be unremarked. Other men, also,
were diabolically clever. Other men maintained armies of spies as he did. All
plans that depended upon secrecy possessed the fatal flaw of fragility. And the
fact that they sometimes succeeded merely proved that a given victim was not
himself an able man. It was one of the pleasures of life to be able to make all
the preparations necessary to an enterprise within the sight and hearing of
one's opponent.
Without haste he set about
making them.
18
when tews was first informed of Clane's arrival in
Mered, about an hour after the event, his interest was dim. More important—or
so they seemed—reports were arriving steadily from other sources about the
troop dispositions Jerrin was making for the defense of the city. What puzzled
Tews was that some of the information came from Jerrin in the form of copies of
the orders he was sending out.
Was
the man trying to re-establish relations by ignoring the fact that a break had
taken place? It was an unexpected maneuver, and it could only mean that the
crisis had come before Jerrin was ready. Tews smiled coldly as he arrived at
the conclusion. His prompt action had thrown the opposition into confusion. It
should not be difficult to seize Jerrin's headquarters the following morning
with his three legions, and so end the mutiny.
By
three o'clock Tews had sent out the necessary orders. At four, a very special
spy of his, the impoverished son of a knight,
reported that Clane had sent a messenger
to Jerrin, requesting an interview that evening.
At
nine he learned that Clane had been invited for dinner by Jerrin, but had been
received with that cold formality which had long distinguished the
relationship between the two brothers. One of the slave waiters, bribed by a spy, reported that once, during the meal, Clane urged that a hundred
spaceships be withdrawn from patrols and assigned to some task which was not
clear to the slave.
There
was something else about opening up the battle lines to the northeast, but-
this was so vague that the Lord Adviser did not think of it again until,
shortly after midnight, he was roused from sleep by the desperate cries of men, and the clash of metal outside his bedroom.
Before
he could more than sit up, the door burst open, and swarms of Venusian soldiers
poured inside.
The battle lines to the
northeast had been opened up.
It was the third night of his captivity, the
hanging night. Tews quivered as the guards came for him about an hour after
dusk and led him out into the fire-fit darkness. He was to be the first. As his
body swung aloft, twenty thousand Venusians would tug on the ropes around the
necks of ten thousand Linnan soldiers.
The
night upon which Tews gazed with glazed eyes was like nothing he had ever seen.
Uncountably numerous fires burned on a vast plain. In the near distance he
could see the great post upon which he was to be executed. The other posts
began just beyond it. There were rows of them, and they had been set up less
than five feet apart, with the rows ten from each other, to make room for camp
fires that lighted the scene.
The doomed men were already at their posts,
tied hand and foot, the ropes around their necks. Tews could only see the first
row with any clearness. They were all officers, that first line of victims; and
they stood at ease almost to a man. Some were chatting with those near them, as
Tews was led up, but the conversation stopped as they saw him.
Never
in his life had Tews seen such consternation flare into so many faces at once.
There were cries of horror, groans of incredulous despair. Tews had not
expected to be recognized, but it was possible the men had been taunted with
his identity. Actually, his three-day beard and the night with its flickering
fire shadows gave them little opportunity to be sure. No one said anything as
he mounted the scaffold. Tews himself stood stiff and pale as the rope was
fitted around his neck. He had ordered many a man to be hanged in his time. It
was a different and thrilling sensation to be the victim and not the judge.
The
passion of anger that came was rooted in a comprehension that he wouldn't be
where he was if he had actually believed that a reversal was in progress.
Instead, he had counted
on Jerrin maintaining his
forces against the enemy, while his three legions seized control from Jerrin.
Deep
down inside, he had believed in Jerrin's honesty. He had sought to humiliate
him, so that he could nullify the rightful honors of a young man with whom he
did not wish to share the power of the state. His desperate fury grew out of
the rapidly materializing belief that Jerrin had in reality been plotting
against him. That chaos of thought would have raged on but for one thing: At
that moment he happened to glance down, and there, below the platform, with a
group of Venusian leaders, stood Clane.
The
shock was too great to take all in one mental jump. Tews glared down at the
slim young man, and the picture was obviously clear now. There had been a
treasonable deal between Jerrin and the Venusians. He saw that the mutation was
in his temple scientist fatigue gown, and that he carried the four foot metal
"rod of fire."
He braced himself to speak, but before he
could say anything, Clane said, "Your excellency, let us waste no time
with recriminations. Your death would renew the civil war in Linn. That is the
last thing we desire, as we shall prove tonight, beyond all your
suspicions."
Tews
had hold of himself now. With quick logic, he examined the chances of a rescue.
There was none. If spaceships should try to land troops, the Venusians need
merely pull on their ropes, and hang the bound men—and then turn their vast,
assembled army to hold off the scattered attacks launched from scores of
spaceships. That was one maneuver they had undoubtedly prepared against; and
since it was the only possible hope, and it couldn't
take place, then Clane's words were a fraud.
His
thoughts were brought to an abrupt halt, for the Venusian emperor, a grim-faced
man of fifty, was climbing the platform steps. He stood there for minutes while
silence gradually fell on the enormous crowd. Then he stepped to the front
group of megaphones and spoke in the common language of Venus.
"Fellow
Venusians," he said, "on this night of our vengeance for all the
crimes that have been committed against us by the empire of Linn, we have with us an agent of the commanding general of our
vile enemy. He has come to us with an offer, and I want him to come up here and
tell it to you, so that you can laugh in his face as I did."
There
was a mass shriek from the darkness: "Hang him! Hang him, too!"
Tews
was chilled by that fierce cry, but he was forced to admire the cunning of the
Venusian leader. Here was a man whose followers must many times have doubted
his wisdom in fighting. His face showed the savage fines of obstinacy, of a
badly worried general, who knew what criticism could be. What an opportunity
this was for gaining public support.
Clane
was climbing the steps. He waited until silence once more was restored, and
then said in a surprisingly strong voice: "The atom gods of Linn, whose
agent I am, are weary of this war. I call upon them to end it now!"
The
Venusian emperor started towards him. "That isn't what you were going to
say," he cried. "You—" He stopped. Because the
sun came out.
The
sun came out. Several
hours had passed since it had sunk behind the flaming horizon of the northern
sea. Now, in one leap it had jumped to the sky directly overhead.
The
scene of so many imminent deaths stood out as in the brightness of noon. All
the posts with their victims still standing beneath them, the hundreds of
thousands of Venusian spectators, the great plain with the now visible coastal
city in the distance—were brightly lighted.
The
shadows began on the other side of the plain. The city could only be seen by
vague light reflections. The sea beyond to the north and the mountains to the
south were as deep as ever in blackness.
Seeing that darkness, Tews realized that it was not the sun at all
above, but an incredible ball of fire, a source of light that, in this cubic
mile of space, equaled the sun in magnitude of light. The gods of Linn had answered the call made
to them.
His
realization ended. There was a cry from scores of thousands of throats, a cry
stranger and more horrible than any sound that Tews had ever heard. There was
fear in it, and despair, and an awful reverence. Men and women alike started to
sink to their knees. At that moment the extent of the defeat that was here
penetrated to the Venusian leader. He let out a terrible cry of his own—and
leaped towards the catch that would release the trapdoor on which Tews stood.
From the comer of one eye, Tews saw Clane bring up the rod of fire.
There
was no fire but the emperor dissolved. Tews could never afterwards decide what
actually happened, yet he had 'a persistent memory of a human being literally
turning into liquid stuff. Liquid that collapsed onto the platform, and burned
a hole through the wood. The picture was so impossible that he closed his
eyes, and never again quite admitted the reality to himself. When he finally
opened his eyes, spaceships were coming down from the sky. To the now prostrate
Venusians, the sudden appearance of fifty thousand Linnan soldiers among them
must have seemed like a miracle as great as the two they had already witnessed.
An
entire reserve army was captured that night, and though the war on other
islands dragged on and oh, the great island of Uxta was completely captured
within a few weeks. Clane's words had been proved beyond all suspicions.
On a
cloudy afternoon a week later, Clane was among the distinguished Linnans who
attended the departure of the flotilla of ships which was to accompany the Lord
Adviser Tews back to Earth. Tews and his retinue arrived, and as he came up to
the platform, a group of temple initiates burst into a paroxysm of singing. The
Lord Adviser stopped, and stood for a minute, a faint smile on his face,
listening.
The
return to Earth, quietly suggested by Clane, suited him completely. He would
take with him the first tidings of the Venusian victory. He would have time to
scotch any rumors that the Lord Adviser himself had been humiliatingly
captured. And above all, he would be the one who would insist upon full triumph
honors for Jerrin.
He
was amazed that he had temporarily forgotten his old cunnings about things like
that. As he climbed aboard the flagship, the initiates broke into a new spasm
of sound.
It was clear that the atom gods, also, were
satisfied.
in his initial address to the Patronate, following his
return from Venus, Tews said among other things: "It is difficult for us
to realize, but Linn is now without formidable enemies anywhere. Our opponents
on Mars and Venus having been decisively defeated by our forces in the past two
decades, we are now in a unique, historical position: the sole great power in
the world of man. A period of unlimited peace and creative reconstruction seems
inevitable."
He
returned to the palace with the cheers of the Patronate ringing in his ears,
his mood one'of thoughtful jubilation. His spies had already reported that the
patrons gave him a great deal of the credit for the victory on
Venus. After all, the war had dragged on for a long time before his arrival.
And then, abruptly, almost overnight, it had ended. The conclusion was that his
brilliant leadership had made a decisive
contribution. It required no astuteness for Tews to realize that, under such circumstances, he could generously bestow a triumph on Jerrin,
and lose nothing by the other's honors.
Despite
his own words to the Patronate, he found himself, as the peaceful weeks went
by, progressively amazed at the reality of what he had said: No enemies. Nothing to fear. Even yet, it seemed hard to believe that
the universe belonged to Linn; and that, as the Lord Adviser, he was now in
his own sphere in a position of power over more subjects than any man had ever
been. So it seemed to the dazzled Tews.
He would be a devoted leader, of course—he
reassured himself hastily, disowning the momentary pride. He visualized great
works that would reflect the glory of Linn and the golden age of Tews. The
vision was so noble and inspiring, that for long he merely toyed with hazy,
magnificent plans, and took no concrete action of any kind.
He
was informed presently that Clane had returned from Venus. Shortly thereafter,
he received a message from the mutation.
His Excellency,
Lord Adviser Tews
My most honored uncle:
I
should like to visit you and describe to you the result of several
conversations between my brother, Jerrin, and myself concerning potential
dangers for the empire. They do not seem severe, but we are both concerned
about the preponderance of slaves as against citizens on Earth, and we are
unhappy about our lack of knowledge of the present situation among the peoples
of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn.
Since
these are the only dangers in sight, the sooner we examine every aspect of the
problem the more certain we can be that the destiny of Linn will be under the
control of intelligent action, and not governed in future by the necessary
opportunism, which has been for so many generations the main element of government.
> Your obedient nephew, Clane
The
letter irritated Tews. It seemed meddlesome. It reminded him that his control
of Linn, and of the glorious future he envisaged for the empire, was not
complete, and that in fact these nephews might urge compromises which would dim
the beauty that only he, apparently, could see. Nevertheless, his reply was
diplomatic:
My dear Clane:
It
was a pleasure to hear from you, and as soon as I return from the mountains, I
shall be happy to receive you and discuss all these matters in the most
thoroughgoing fashion. I have instructed various departments to gather data,
so that when we do get together, we can talk on the basis of facts.
Tews,
Lord Adviser
He
actually issued the instructions, and actually listened to a brief account from
an official who was an "expert" concerning conditions
on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. They were all inhabited by tribes in
various stages of barbaric culture. Recent reports gleaned from questioning of
primitives who came from there, and from the Linnan traders who visited certain
ports of entry, indicated that the old game of intrigue and murder among tribal
chieftans seeking ascendancy was still going on.
Relieved
in spite, of his previous conviction that the situation was exactly as it was
now described, Tews departed on his mountain vacation with a retinue of three
hundred courtiers and five hundred slaves. He was still there a month later,
when a second message arrived from Clane.
Most gracious Lord Adviser Tews:
Your response to my message was a great
relief to me. I wonder if I could further impose upon your good offices, and
have your department heads determine how many visitors we have recently had
from the moons, how many are still here, and where are they presently
concentrated. The reason for this inquiry is that I have discovered that
several of my agents on Europa, the great moon of Jupiter, were suddenly
executed about a year ago, and that actually my own information from that
territory is based upon reports, all of which are not less than two years old,
and those are extremely vague. It seems that about five years ago, a new leader
began to unify Europa; and my agents' reports—when I now examine the data they
furnished—grew less clear with each month after that. I suspect that I have
been victimized by carefully prepared propaganda. If this be so the fact that somebody
was astute enough to seize my channels of information worries me.
These
are only suspicions, of course, but it would seem advisable to have your people
make inquiries ' with the possibility in mind that our present information
sources are unreliable.
Your faithful servant, and nephew,
Clane
The
reference to the mutation's "agents" reminded Tews unpleasantly that
he lived in a world of spies. "I suppose," he
thought wearily, "propaganda is even now being circulated against me,
because I am on a vacation. People cannot possibly realize what great plans my
engineers and I are making for the State on this so-called pleasure trip."
That
irritation lasted for a day, and then he read Clane's letter again, and decided
that an unruffled and diplomatic approach was desirable. He must ever be in a
position to say that he invariably took the most thorough precaution
.. against any eventuality.
He
gave the necessary instructions, advised Clane that he had done so—and then
began to give considerable thought to the weapons he had seen Clane use on
Venus. And during the days that followed, he came to the conclusion that he
must take action. He kept saying to himself how reluctant he was to do so, but
finally he advised Clane:
My dear nephew:
Although you have evidently not felt free to
ask for the protection to which your rank, and the value of your work entitles
you, I am sure you will be happy to hear that the State is prepared to
undertake protection of the material which you have rescued from the pits of
the gods, and from other ancient sources.
The
safest place for all this material is at your residence in Linn. Accordingly,
I am authorizing funds to transport to the city any such equipment which you
have at your country estate. A guards unit will arrive at the estate within the
week with adequate transport, and another guards unit is this day taking up
guard duty at your town residence.
The
captain of the guard, while of course responsible to me, will naturally grant
you every facility for carrying on your work.
It
is with pleasure, my dear Clane, that I extend to you this costly but earned
protection.
At some time not too far in the future, I
should like to have the privilege of a personally conducted tour, so that I may
see for myself what treasures you have in your collection, with a view to
finding further uses for them for the general welfare.
With cordial best wishes, Tews,
Lord Adviser
"At least," thought Tews, after he
had dispatched the message, and given the necessary orders to the military
forces, "that will for the present get the material all in one place.
Later, a further more stritigent control is always possible—not that it will
ever be necessary, of course."
He
learned presently that Clane had offered no resistance, and that the material
had been transported to Linn without incident.
On
the second day after his return to Linn, he received another letter from Clane.
This one requested an audience to discuss "those matters relating to the
defense of the empire, about which your departments have been gathering
information."
He sent a curt note in reply, which stated
simply:
My dear Clane:
I
will advise you as soon as I am free of the more pressing problems of administration.
Please wait word from me.
He slept that night, confident that he was at
last taking a firm stand, and that it was about time.
He awoke to news of disaster.
The
only warning was a 'steely glinting of metal in the early morning sky. The
invaders swooped down on the city of Linn in three hundred spaceships. There
must have been advance spying, for they landed in force at the gates that were
heavily guarded and at the main troop barracks inside the city. From each ship
debouched two hundred odd men.
"Sixty
thousand soldiers!" said Lord Adviser Tews after he had studied the
reports. He issued instructions for the defense of the palace, and sent a
carrier pigeon to the three legions encamped outside the city ordering two of
them to attack when ready. And then he sat pale but composed watching the
spectacle from a window which overlooked the hazy vastness of Linn proper.
Everything was vague and unreal. Most of the invading
ships had disappeared behind large buildings. A few lay in
the open, but they looked dead. It was hard to grasp that
vicious fighting was going on in their vicinity. At nine
o'clock, a messenger arrived'from the Lady Lydia: .
Dear Son:
Have
you any news? Who is attacking us? Is it a limited
assault, or an invasion of the empire? Have you contacted Clane?
L.
The first prisoner was brought in while Tews
was scowling over the unpalatable suggestion that he seek the advice of his
relative. The mutation was the last person he wanted to see. The prisoner, a
bearded giant, proudly confessed that he was from Europa, one of the moons of
Jupiter, and that he feared neither man nor god. The man's size and obvious
physical prowess startled Tews. But his naive outlook on life was cheering.
Subsequent prisoners had similar physical and mental characteristics. And so,
long before noon, Tews had a fairly
clear picture of the situation.
This
was a barbarian invasion from Europa. It was
obviously for loot only. But, unless he acted swiftly, Linn would be divested
in a few days of treasures garnered over the centuries. Bloodthirsty commands
flowed from Tews' lips. Put all prisoners to the sword. Destroy their ships,
their weapons, their clothing. Leave not one vestige of their presence to
pollute the eternal city.
The
morning ran its slow course. Tews considered making an inspection of the city
escorted by the palace cavalry. He abandoned the plan when he realized it would
be impossible for commanders to send him reports if he were on the move. For
the same reason he could not transfer his headquarters to a less clearly
marked building. Just before noon, the relieving report arrived that two of
three camp legions were attacking in force at the main gates.
The
news steadied him. He began to think in terms of broader, more basic
information about what had happened. He remembered unhappily that his
departments probably had the information which—spurred by Clane—he had asked
for months ago. Hastily, he called in several experts, and sat somberly while
each of the men in turn told what he had learned.
There
was actually a great deal of data. Europa, the great moon of
Jupiter, had been inhabited from legendary times by fiercely quarreling tribes.
Its vast atmosphere was said to have been created artificially with the help of
the atom gods by the scientists of the golden age. Like all the artificial
atmospheres, it contained a high
proportion of the gas, teneol, which admitted sunlight, but did not allow much
heat to escape into space.
Starting
about five years before, travelers had begun to bring out reports of a leader
named Czinczar who was ruthlessly welding all the hating factions of the planet
into one nation. For a while it was such a dangerous territory that traders
landed only at specified ports of entry. The information they received was that
Czinczar's attempt at unification had failed. Contact grew even more vague after that; and it was clear to the listening
Tews that the new leader had actually succeeded in his conquests, and that any
word to the contrary was propaganda. The cunning Czin-czar had seized outgoing
communication sources and confused them while he consolidated his position
among the barbarous forces of the planet.
Czinczar. The name had a sinister rhythm to it, a ring
of leashed violence, a harsh, metallic
tintinnabulation. If such a man and his followers escaped with even a fraction
of the portable wealth of Linn, the inhabited solar system would echo with the
exploit. The government of Lord Adviser Tews might tumble like a house of
cards.
Tews
had been hesitating. There was a plan in his mind that would work better if
carried out in the dead of night. But that meant giving the attackers precious
extra hours for loot. He decided not to wait, but dispatched a command to the
third—still unengaged—camp legion to enter the tunnel that led into the central
palace.
As a
precaution, and with the hope of distracting the enemy leader, he sent a
message to Czinczar in the care of a captured barbarian officer. In it he
pointed out the foolishness of an attack that could only result in bloody
reprisals on Europa itself, and suggested that there was still time for an
honorable withdrawal. There was only one thing wrong with all these schemings.
Czinczar had concentrated a large force of his own for the purpose of capturing
the Imperial party. And had held back in the hope that he
would learn definitely whether or not the Lord Adviser was inside the palace.
The released prisoner, who delivered Tews' message, established his presence
inside.
The
attack in force that followed captured the Central Palace and everyone in it,
and surprised the legionnaries who were beginning to emerge from the secret
passageway. Czin-czar's men poured all the oil in the large palace tanks into
the downward sloping passageway, and set it afire.
Thus died an entire legion
of men, including Tews.
to lord clane linn, going over his accounts on his country
estate, the news of the fall of Linn came as a special shock. With unimportant
exceptions, all his atomic material was in Linn. He dismissed the messenger,
who had unwisely shouted the news as he entered the door of the accounting
department. And then sat at his desk—and realized that he had better accept for
the time being the figures of his slave bookkeepers
on'the condition of the estate.
As
he glanced around the room after announcing the postponement, it seemed to him
that at least one of the slaves showed visible relief. He did not delay, but
called the man before him instantly. He had an inexorable system in dealing
with slaves, a system inherited from his long dead mentor, Joquin, along with
the estate itself.
Integrity,
hard work, loyalty, and a positive attitude produced better conditions,
shorter working hours, more freedom of action, after thirty the right to
marry, after forty legal freedom. Laziness and other negative attitudes such as
cheating were punished by a set pattern of demotions. Short of changing the law
of the land, Clane could not at the moment imagine a better system, in view of
the existence of slavery. And now, in spite of his personal anxieties, he
carried out the precept of Joquin as it applied to a situation where no
immediate evidence was available. He told the man, Oorag, what had aroused his
suspicions, and asked him if they were justified. "If you are guilty and
confess," he said, "you will receive only one demotion. If you do not
confess and you are later proven guilty, there will be three demotions, which means physical labor, as you know."
The
slave, a big man, shrugged, and said with a sneer, "By the time Czinczar
is finished with you Linnans, you will be working for me."
"Field labor," said Clane curtly,
"for three months, ten hours a day."
It
was no time for mercy. An empire under attack did not flinch from the harshest
acts. Anything that could be construed as weakness would be disastrous.
As
the slave was led out by guards, he shouted a final insult over his shoulder.
"You wretched mutation," he said, "you'll be where you belong
when Czinczar gets here."
Clane did not answer. He considered it
doubtful that the new conqueror had been selected by fate to punish all the
evildoers of Linn according to their desserts. It would take too long. He put
the thought out of his mind, and walked to the doorway. There he paused, and
faced the dozen trusted slaves who sat at their various desks.
"Do
nothing rash," he said slowly in a clear voice, "any of you. If you
harbor emotions similar to those expressed by Oorag, restrain yourselves. The
fall of one city in a surprise attack is not important." He hesitated. He
was, he realized, appealing to their cautious instincts, but his reason told
him that in a great crisis men did not always consider all the potentialities.
"I
am aware," he said finally, "there is no great pleasure in being a
slave, though it has advantages—economic security, free craft training. But
Oorag's wild words are a proof that, if young slaves were free to do as they
pleased, they would constitute a jarring, if not revolutionary factor in the
community. It is unfortunately true that people of different races can only
gradually learn to five together."
He
went out, satisfied that he had done the best possible under the circumstances.
He had no doubt whatsoever that here, in this defiance of Oorag, the whole
problem of a slave empire had again shown itself in miniature. If Czinczar were
to conquer any important portion of Earth, a slave uprising would follow
automatically. There were too many slaves, far too many for safety, in the
Linnan empire.
Outside,
he saw his first refugees. They were coming down near the main granaries in a
variety of colorful skyscooters. Clane watched them for a moment, trying to
picture their departure from Linn. The amazing thing was that they had waited
till the forenoon of the second day. People must simply have refused to believe
that the city was in danger, though, of course, early fugitives could have fled
in other directions.
Clane emerged decisively out of his reverie.
He called a slave, and dispatched him to the scene of the arrivals with a
command to his personal guards. "Tell these people who have rapid
transportation to keep moving. Here, eighty miles from Linn, we shall take care
only of the foot-weary."
Briskly
now, he went into his official residence, and called the commanding officer of
his troops. "I want volunteers," he explained, "particularly men
with strong religious beliefs, who on this second night after the invasion are
prepared to fly into Linn and remove all the transportable equipment from my
laboratory."
His
plan, as he outlined it finally to some forty volunteers, was simplicity
itself. In the confusion of taking over a vast city, it would probably be
several^days before the barbarian army would actually occupy all the important
residences. Particularly, on these early days, they might miss a house situated,
as his was, behind a barrier of trees.
If
by some unfortunate chance it was already occupied, it would probably be so
loosely held that bold men could easily kill every alien on the premises, and
so accomplish their purpose.
"I want to impress upon you," Clane
went on, "the importance of this task. As all of you know, I am a member
of the temple hierarchy. I have been entrusted with sacred god metals and
sacred equipment, including material taken from the very homes of the gods. It
would be a disaster if these precious relics were to fall into unclean hands.
I, therefore, charge you that, if you should by some mischance be captured, do
not reveal the real purpose of your presence. Say that you came to rescue your
owner's private property. Even admit you were foolish to sacrifice yourself for
such a reason."
Mindful
of Tews' guard unit, he finished his instructions: "It may be that Linnan
soldiers are guarding the equipment, in which case give the officer in command
this letter."
He
handed the document to the captain of the volunteers. It was an authorization
signed by Clane with the seal of his rank. Since the death of Tews, such an
authorization would not be lightly ignored.
When
they had gone out to prepare for the mission, Clane dispatched one of his
private spaceships to the nearby city of Goram, and asked the commander there,
a friend of his, what kind of counter-action was being prepared against the
invader. "Are the authorities in the cities and towns," he asked,
"showing that they understand the patterns of action required of them in a
major emergency? Or must the old law be explained to them from the
beginning?"
The
answer arrived in the shortest possible time, something under forty minutes.
The general placed his forces at Clane's command, and advised that he had
dispatched messengers to every major city on Earth, in the name of "his
excellency, Lord Clane Linn, ranking survivor on Earth of the noble Tews, the
late Lord Adviser, who perished at the head of his troops, defending the city
of Linn from the foul and murderous surprise attack launched by a barbarian
horde of beast-like men, who seek to destroy the fairest civilization that ever
existed."
There
was more in the same vein, but it was not the excess of verbiage that startled
Clane. It was the offer itself, and the implications. In his name, an army was being organized.
After
rereading the message, he walked slowly to the full length mirror in the
adjoining bathroom, and stared at his image. He was dressed in the fairly
presentable reading gown of a temple scientist. Like all his temple clothing,
the shoulder cloth folds of this concealed his "differences" from
casual view. An observer would have to be very acute to see how carefully the
cloak was drawn around his neck, and how it was built up to hide the slant of
his body from the neck down, and how tightly the arm ends were tied together
at his wrists.
It
would take three months to advise Lord Jerrin on Venus, and four to reach Lord
Draid on Mars, both planets being on the far side of the sun from Earth. It
would require almost, but not .quite, twice as long to receive a message from
them. Only a member of the ruling family could possibly win the support of the
diversified elements of the empire. Of the fate of the Lord Adviser's immediate
family, there was as yet no word. Besides, they were women. Which
left Lord Clane, youngest brother of Jerrin, grandson of the late Lord Leader.
For not less than six months accordingly he would be the acting Lord Leader of
Linn.
The
afternoon of that second day of the invasion waned slowly. Great ships began to
arrive, bringing soldiers. By dusk, more than a thousand men were encamped
along the road to the city of Linn, and by the riverside. Darting small craft
and wary full-sized spaceships floated overhead, and foot patrols were out,
guarding all approaches to the estate.
The
roads themselves were virtually deserted. It was too soon for the mobs from
Linn, which air-scooter scouts reported were fleeing the captured city by the
gates that, at mid-afternoon, were still open.
During
the last hour before dark, the air patrols reported that the gates were being
shut one by one. And that the stream of refugees was dwindling to a trickle
near the darkening city. All through that last hour, the sky was free of
scooters transporting refugees. It seemed clear that the people who could
afford the costly machines were either already safe, or had waited too long,
possibly in the hope of succoring some absent member of the family.
At
midnight, the volunteers departed on their dangerous mission in ten scooters
and one spaceship. As- a first gesture of his new authority, Clane augmented
their forces by adding a hundred soldiers from the regular army. He watched
the shadowy ships depart, then hurried to attend a
meeting of those general officers who had had time to arrive. A dozen men
climbed to their feet as he entered. They saluted, then
stood at attention.
Clane
stopped short. He had intended to be calm, matter-of-fact; pretending even to
himself that what was happening was natural. The feeling wasn't like that. An
emotion came, familiar, terrifying. He could feel it tingling up the remoter
reflexes of his nervous system as of old, the beginning of the dangerous childish
panic, product of his early, horrible days as a tormented mutation. The muscles
of his face worked. Three times he swallowed with difficulty. Then, with a
stiff gesture, he returned the salute. And, walking hastily to the head of the
table, sat down.
Clane
waited till they had seated themselves, then asked for
brief reports as to available troops. He noted down the figures given by each
man for his province, and at the end added up the columns.
"With
four provinces still to be heard from," he announced, "we have a
total of eighteen thousand trained soldiers, six thousand partly trained
reserves, and some five hundred thousand able-bodied civilians."
"Your excellency," said his friend, Morkid, "the
Linnan empire maintains normally a standing army of one million men. On Earth
by far the greatest forces were stationed in or near the city of Linn, and they
have been annihilated. Some four hundred thousand men are still on Venus, and
slightly more than two hundred thousand on Mars."
Clane,
who had been mentally adding up the figures given, said quickly. "That
doesn't add up to a million men."
Morkid
nodded gravely. "For the first time in years, the army is under strength.
The conquest of Venus seemed to eliminate all potential enemies of Linn, and
Lord Adviser Tews considered it a good time to economize."
"I
see," said Clane. He felt pale and bloodless, like a man who has suddenly
discovered that he cannot walk by himself.
l/ydia climbed heavily out of her sedan chair,
conscious of how old and unattractive she must seem to the
grinning barbarians in the courtyard. She didn't let it worry her too much. The important thing was that her
request for an interview had been granted by Czinczar after
she had, at his insistence, withdrawn the proviso that
she be given a safe conduct.
The
old woman smiled mirthlessly; there was exhilaration in the realization that
she was probably going to her death. Despite her age, and some self-disgust,
she felt reluctant to accept oblivion. But Clane had asked her to
take the risk. It vaguely amazed Lydia that the idea of the mutation holding
the Lord Leadership did not dismay her any more. She had her own private
reasons for believing Clane capable. She walked slowly along the familiar
hallways, through the gleaming arches and across rooms that glittered with the
treasures of the Linn family. Everywhere were the big, bearded young men who
had come from far Europa to conquer
an empire about which they could only have heard by hearsay. Looking at them,
she felt justified in all the pitiless actions she had taken in her day. They
were, it seemed to the grim old woman, living
personifications of the chaos that she had fought against all her life.
As
she entered the throne room, the darker thoughts faded from her mind. She
glanced around with sharp eyes for the mysterious leader. There was no one on
or near the throne. Groups of men stood around talking. In one of the groups
was a tall, graceful, young man, different from all the others in the room.
They were bearded. He was clean shaven.
He
saw her, and stopped listening to what one of his companions was saying,
stopped so noticeably that a silence fell on the group. The silence
communicated itself to other groups. After not more than a minute, the roomful
of men had faced about and was staring at her, waiting for their commander to
speak. Lydia waited also, examining him swiftly. Czinczar was not a handsome
man, but he had an appearance of strength, always a form of good looks. And yet
it was not enough. This barbarian world was full of strong-looking men. Lydia,
who had expected outstanding qualities, was puzzled.
His
face was sensitive rather than brutal, which was unusual. But still not enough
to account for that fact that he was absolute lord of an enormous undisciplined
horde.
The
great man came forward. "Lady," he said, "you have asked to see
me."
And
then she knew his power. In all her long life, she had never heard a baritone
voice so resonant, so wonderfully beautiful, so assured of command. It changed
him. She realized suddenly that she had been mistaken about his looks. She had
sought normal clean-cut handsomeness. This man was beautiful.
The
first fear came to her. A voice like that, a
personality like that-
She
had a vision of this man persuading the Linnan empire
to do his will. Mobs hypnotized. The greatest men bewitched. She broke the
spell with an effort of will. She said, "You are Czinczar?"
"I am Czinczar."
The
definite identification gave Lydia another though briefer pause. But this time
she recovered more swiftly. And this time, also, her recovery was complete. Her
eyes narrowed. She stared at the great man with a developing hostility.
"I can see," she said acridly, "that my purpose in coming to
see you is going to fail."
"Naturally." Czinczar inclined his head, shrugged. He did not ask her what was her purpose. He seemed incurious.
He
stood politely, waiting for her to finish what she had to say.
"Until I saw you," said Lydia
grimly, "I took it for granted that you were an astute general. Now, I see
that you consider yourself a man of destiny. I can already see you being
lowered into your grave."
There
was an angry murmur from the other men in the room. Czinczar waved them into
silence. "Madam," he said, "such remarks are offensive to my
officers. State your case, and then I will decide what to do with you."
Lydia
said quietly, "I shall be brief, since you are no doubt planning high
policy and further military campaigns. I have come here at the request of my
grandson, Lord Clane Linn."
"The mutation!" Czinczar nodded. His remark was noncommittal,
an identification, not a comment.
Lydia
felt an inward shock that Czinczar's knowledge of the ruling faction should
extend to Clane, who had tried to keep himself in the background of Linnan
life. She dared not pause to consider the potentialities. She continued quietly,
"Lord Clane is a temple scientist, and, as such, he has for many years
been engaged in humanitarian scientific experiments. Most of his equipment,
unfortunately, is here in Linn." Lydia shrugged. "It is quite
valueless to you and your men, but it would be a great loss to civilization if
it were destroyed or casually removed. Lord Clane therefore requests that you
permit him to send slaves to his town house to remove these scientific
instruments to his country estate. In return he will pay you in precious metals
and jewels any reasonable price which you care to name." Having finished,
she took a deep breath, and waited.
There
was a thoughtful expression on the barbarian leader's face. "I have heard," he said, "of Lord Clane's experiments with
the so-called"—he hesitated—"god metals of Linn. Very curious
stories, some of them; and as soon as I am free from my military duties I
intend to examine this laboratory with my own eyes. You may tell your
grandson," he continued with a tone of finality, "that his little scheme
to retrieve the greatest treasures in the'entire Linnan empire
was hopeless from the beginning. Five spaceships descended in the first few
minutes of the attack on the estate of Lord Clane, to insure that the
mysterious weapons there were not used against my invading fleet, and I
consider it a great misfortune that he himself was absent in the country at
the time. You may tell him that we were not caught by surprise by his midnight
attempt two days ago to remove the equipment, and that his worst fears as to
its fate are justified." He finished, "It is a great relief to know
that most of his equipment is safely in our hands."
Lydia
said nothing. The phrase, "You may tell him," had had a profound
chemical effect on her body.
She
hadn't reahzed she was so tense. It seemed to her that, if she spoke, she would
reveal her own tremendous personal relief. "You may tell him—" There could be only one interpretation. She
was going to be allowed to depart. Once more she waited.
Czinczar
walked forward until he was standing directly in front of her. When he spoke,
he showed that he was consciously aware that he was granting mercy.
"Old
woman," he said, "I am letting you go because you did me a great
favor when you maneuvered your son, Lord Tews, into the—what did he call
it—Lord Advisership. That move, and that alone, gave me the chance I needed to
make my attack on the vast Linnan empire." He smiled. "You may
depart, bearing that thought in mind."
For
some time, Lydia had condemned the sentimental action that had brought Tews into
supreme power. But it was a different matter to realize that, far away in interplanetary
space, a man had analyzed the move as a major Linnan disaster. She went out
without another word.
Czinczar
slowly climbed the hill leading up to the low, ugly fence that fronted Lord
Clane's town house. He paused at the fence, recognized the temple building
material of which it was composed—and then walked on thoughtfully. With the
same narrow-eyed interest a few minutes later, he stared at the gushing
fountain of boiling water. He beckoned finally the engineer who had directed
the construction of the spaceships that had brought his army to Earth.
"How does it work?" he asked.
The
designer examined the base of the fountain. He located the opening into the
fountain, and knelt in the dirt like any worker. In that, however, he was not
unique. Czinczar knelt beside him, little realizing how his actions shocked the
high-born Linnans who belonged to his personal slave retinue. The two men
peered into the gloom. "Temple building material," said Meewan, the
designer.
Czinczar
nodded. They climbed to their feet without further comment, for these were
matters which they had discussed at length over a period of years. At the
house, a few minutes later, the leader and his henchman both lifted the heavy
draperies that covered the walls of a corridor lead-" ing into the main
laboratory. Like the fence outside, the walls were warm as from some inner
heat.
Temple
building material! Once again no comment passed between them. They walked on
into the laboratory proper; and now they looked at each other in amazement. The
room had been noticeably enlarged from its original size, although this they
did not know. A great section had been torn out of one wall, and the gap,
although it was completely filled in, was still rough and unfinished. But that
was only the environment. On almost every square yard of the vast new floor
were machines opaque and machines transparent, machines big and small, some
apparently complete, other unmistakably mere fragments.
For a moment there was a distinct sense of
too much to see. Czinczar walked forward speculatively, glanced at several of
the transparent articles with an eye that tried to skim the essentials of shape
and inner design. At no time, during those first moments, did he have any
intention of pausing for a detailed examination. And then, out of the comer of
his eye, he caught a movement.
A glow. He
bent down, and peered into a long partly transparent metal case, roughly shaped
like a coffin, even as to the colorful and costly looking lining. The inside,
however, curved down to form a narrow channel. Along this channel rolled a ball
of light. It turned over sedately, taking approximately one minute to cover
the distance to the far side. With the same lack of haste, it paused, seemed to
meditate on its next action, and then, with immense deliberation began its
return journey.
The
very meaninglessness of the movement fascinated Czin-czar. "There must
be," he said, and there was a stubborn note in his glorious voice,
"some reason for its movements, for—its existence."
Half an hour later, he was
still examining it.
22
"if i could only—" thought Clane many times. And knew that he dared not. Not yet.
He
had with a certain cynicism permitted the soldiers sent by Lord Tews to remove
his equipment to Linn. This included the prize of all his findings, a ball that
rolled to and fro in a coffin-like container; a discovery of the golden age
which had shaken his certainties to the core of his being.
Because
of the ball of energy, he had not hesitated to let Tews take control of the
artifacts of that ancient and wonderful culture.
He
needed merely go into the presence of the ball, and because of his knowledge of
its function, could attune himself to it.
It could then be mentally controlled from a
distance; all its strange power available—for about three days. At some not
precisely determinable time on the third day, it would cease to
"come" when he "called" it.
Then
he would have to visit it while it was in its container, andTw direct contact
re-establish rapport.
It
had seemed evident from Tews' action that the Lord Adviser had not intended to
bar him from the equipment. And so, the location of the ball in his own Linnan residence under guard had not mattered.
He
had not despite his anxieties anticipated a major attack that would capture
Linn in one swift assault.
And
so, the weapon that could end the war was out of his reach, unless he could
somehow get to it by cunning means.
Even
as in a kind of mental agony, he wondered how he would get into Linn, and into
his house, he devoted himself to the grim business of training an army as it
fought.
There
was an old saying in the Linnan army to the effect that, during his first
month, a trainee, if put into battle, caused the death of his trained
companions. During the second month, he hindered retreats made necessary by his
presence. And during the third month he was just good enough to get himself
killed in the first engagement.
Clane,
watching a group of trainees after several weeks of drilling, experienced all
the agony of realizing how true the adage was. Learning to fire a bow
effectively required complex integration of mind and body. In-fighting with
swords had to include the capacity for co-operating with companions. And
effective spear fighting was an art in itself.
The
plan he outlined that night to the full general staff was an attempt to cover
up against the weakness. It was a frank determination to use unfit men as
first-line defense troops. He put in a word for the unfit. "Do not
over-exercise them. Get them out into the open air, and simply teach them the
first elements of how to use weapons. First, bows and arrows,
then spears, and finally swords."
After the meeting, long into the night, he
examined re-
ports of the cities of Nouris and Gulf, which had fallen
virtually without a fight. As the barbarians attacked, the
slaves simply rose up and murdered their masters. A supple-
mentary general staff report recommended mass execution for
all able-bodied male slaves. •
The
uneasy Clane dispatched messengers to gather commercial and industrial leaders
for a morning conference, and then unhappily took the slave problem to bed with
him.
At
ten o'clock he called the meeting to order, and told the hundred-odd assembled
representative merchants that the army had recommended universal death for male
slaves.
His statement caused an
immediate uproar.
One
man said, "Your excellency, it is impossible. We cannot destroy so much
valuable property."
With
two exceptions, that seemed to be the attitude. Both exceptions were young men,
one of whom said, "Gentlemen, this is a necessary action."
The
other said, "My own feeling is that this crisis makes possible a great
progressive act—the end of slavery in Linn."
Both men were shouted down
by enraged merchants.
Clane
stepped forward, and raised his hand. When he had silence, he began:
"There is no time for half measures. We must adopt one or the other of these
alternatives."
There followed a series of conferences among groups of
merchants. Finally, a bland spokesman said: "Your excel-
lency, the merchants here present favor promising the
slaves
freedom." ,
For
a long moment, Clane gazed at his grinning audience, then abruptly turned his
back on them, and left the room. That afternoon he prepared and issued a
special bulletin:
FREEDOM
FOR LOYAL SERVANTS
By order of his excellency,
Lord Clane Linn, Leader of Linn, temple scientist, beloved of the atom gods
themselves, it is hereby commanded, and so it shall be
jorevermore: m
Greetings
to all those good men and women who have quietly and efficiently served the
empire in atonement for sins of leaders who rashly led them into hopeless
wars against the god-protected Linnan' empire— here is the chance for complete
freedom which you have earned by your actions and attitudes during the past
years.
The
empire has been attacked by a cruel and barbarous invader. His reign of terror
cannot but be temporary, for invincible forces are gathering against him. An
army of a million men is on the way from Mars and Venus, and here on Earth
irresistible forces totaling more than two million men are already organizing
for battle.
The
enemy numbers less than sixty thousand soldiers. To this small army, which
gained its initial victory hy a surprise and base attack, a few foolish men and
women have rashly attached themselves. All the women unless they are convicted
of major crimes, will be spared. For the men who have already gone over to the
enemy, there is but one hope: Escape immediately from the barbarian enemy, and
REPORT TO THE CONCENTRATION CAMPS
listed at the bottom of this proclamation. There will be no guards at the
camps, but weekly roll calls will be made. And every man whose name appears
regularly on these rolls will be granted full freedom when the enemy is
defeated.
For hardened recalcitrants,
the penalty is death.
To
those men and women still loyally serving at their appointed tasks, I, Lord Clane, acting Lord Leader of Linn,
give the following commands:
All women and children will remain at their
present residences, continuing to serve as in the past.
All
men report to their masters, and say, "It
is my intention to take advantage of
the offer of Lord Clane.
Give
me a week's food, so that I, too, may report to a concentration
camp." ^
Having
done this, and having received the food, leave at once. DO NOT DELAY A SINGLE
HOUR.
If
for some reason your master is not at home, take the food and go without
permission. No one will hinder you in your departure from the city.
Any
man to whom this order applies, who is found lurking within any city or town
twenty-four hours after this proclamation is posted, will be suspected of
treasonable intent.
The penalty is death.
Any
man, who after one week, is found within a fifty mile radius of a city, will be
suspected of treasonable intent.
The penalty is death.
To
save yourself, go to a concentration camp, and appear
regularly for roll call. If the barbarians attack your camp, scatter into the
forests and hills and hide, or go to another camp. Adequate food rations will
be supplied all camps.
All
those of proven loyalty will receive freedom when the war is over. They will
immediately have the right to marry. Settlement land will be opened up. After
five years, citizenship rights, granted alien immigrants, will be available on
application.
This is the end of slavery
in the Linnan empire.
BE WISE-BE SAFE-BE FREE
23
clane watched the battle for Goram from a patrol craft that
darted from strong point to strong point. Enemy squadrons tried again and again
to close in on him, but his own machine was faster and
more maneuverable.
The
familiar trick of getting above him was tried, an old device in patrol craft
and spaceship fighting. But the expected energy flow upward did not take place.
His small vessel did not even sag, which was normally the minimum reaction when
two sources of atomic energy operated on a gravity fine.
The
efforts worried Clane. Czinczar was, of course, aware by this time that his
enemy knew more about the metals of the gods than he or his technicians. But it
would be unfortunate if they should conclude from the actions of this one ship
that Clane himself was inside. He wanted to see this battle. In spite of
everything, minute by minute, he saw if.
The
defense was tough, tougher than he had anticipated from the fact that four more
cities had fallen in the past four weeks. The untrained were fighting grimly
for their lives. Arrows took a toll of the attackers. Spears,
awkwardly but desperately manipulated, inflicted wounds and sometimes death.
The sword fighting stage was the worst. The muscular and powerful barbarians,
once they penetrated the weapons that could attack them from a distance, made
short work of their weaker adversaries.
The
first line was down, devastated, defeated. The second line battle began.
Barbarian reserves came forward, and were met by waves of arrows that darkened
the sky—and took their toll when they struck the advancing groups of men.
Hoarse cries of pain, curses, the shrieks of the desperately wounded, the agonized horror of Linnans suddenly cut off, and doomed,
rose up to the ears of those in the darting small craft. The defenders strove
to stay together. That was part of their instructions. Retreat slowly to the
central squares—which were strongly held against a surprise rear attack.
Retreat, and at the last minute spaceships
would land and rescue the hard-pressed, but theoretically still intact army of
what had once been able-bodied civilians. After a month and a half of training,
they were too valuable to sacrifice in a last ditch fight.
As
it was, their dogged resistance was shaping the pattern of the war. Surely,
Czinczar, counting his men after each battle, must already be having his own
private doubts. His army as a whole, augmented by the unrepentant among the
slaves, was increasing daily. But the larger the army grew the smaller was his
chance of controlling it.
Yet
there was no doubt about this battle, or this city. As the dark tide of night
slipped in from the east, victory fires began to burn in all the important
streets. The smoke wreathed into the sky and blood-red flames licked up into
the blackness. The Linnans below, at this very moment enduring the beginning of
a barbarian occupation, would not be in a humor to appreciate that their
grudgingly accepted defeat represented a possible turning point in the war.
The
time had come to decide when and where and under what conditions the main
Linnan force would be thrown into a decisive battle for the control of the
planet. And there was another decision, also, involving an immensely risky
attempt to get near the ball of light. Clane shifted uneasily and drew his
cloak tighdy around his thin shoulders.
He
was still considering ways and means when a message from Czinczar was brought
him by a released Linnan nobleman, who had been captured by the barbarians.
I shall like to have a conversation with you,
and should like to show you an object the like of which— I'll wager—you have
never seen. Can you think of a way in which such a meeting could be arranged?
Lord
Clane showed the message to the general staff at its meeting the following
morning. They unanimously forbade such a rendezvous, but agreed that it was an
opportunity to send a formal message to the barbarian leader.
The mutation, how had his own reasons for
appearing firm, had already written the communication. He read it to the
assembled officers:
To the barbarian chieftain,
Czinczar:
Your cowardly attempt to win mercy for your
crimes against humanity by a personal appeal to myself,
is of no avail. Get off this planet with your barbarous forces. Only immediate
compliance can save you and Europa from destruction. Take heedl
Clane,
Acting Lord Leader
The message was approved, and dispatched in
the care of a captured barbarian officer. Clane began immediately to complete
preparations for launching an attack against the. city
of Linn. Such an attack had been discussed several times by the staff; and had
been agreed on reluctantly, as a feint. The generals felt that a landing might
confuse the defenders of the city, and thus enable the Linnan army to recapture
key outlying cities; which would indeed be the real goal. It was understood
that the assault force would withdraw from Linn during the night of the day of
attack.
Clane
was content with this. He set out for the city of Linn the day before the
attack, making the initial part of the journey in an air scooter. From this, in
a secluded spot, he unloaded a donkey and a cart of vegetables, and trudged
beside it the final twelve miles.
In
his drab work garb of a temple initiate, his was one of many carts; and at no
time was there any problem. So vast was the slave army that held Linn, that Czinczar's forces had quickly sought to establish
a normal flow of food from the surrounding countryside into the city to ward
off starvation.
Linnan scouts had long since reported that
the gates
were open.
Clane entered without interference from the
former slaves who guarded that particular gate. Once inside, he was even less
conspicuous, and no one questioned his right to go along the street towards his
city residence. He climbed the hill at the trades
entrance, and was permitted to take his cart through an opening in the low
fence by the single barbarian soldier who guarded that section of it.
Dutifully,
as if he were sent on lawful business, he headed for the trades entrance of the
house, and he turned the vegetables over to two women, and said, "Who is
in charge today?"
He was given a barbarian name:
"Gleedon!" "Where is he?" Clane asked.
"In his office, of course—through there." The older woman pointed along the main
hallway, which led through the large central room where most of the precious
machinery and equipment had been stored.
As
he entered the great room, he saw that there were a dozen barbarian soldiers at
the various entrances. He saw also that the container with the ball of light
was at the center of the chamber.
He could walk by, and touch it, in passing.
Without
appearing too hurried, he walked forward, put his finger through the flimsy
surface of the sphere, and, without pausing, continued on toward the office.
He
was sorely tempted, at this point, to take no further chances. If he acted at
once, and seized the house, then he would have control of the box.
But
if he carried through with his original plan, and then the box were removed, so
that he could not find it during the three days that the sphere would now be
activated—He shuddered, and refused to think of such an eventuality.
He
had been impressed by Czinczar's communications. The barbarian leader had
important information to give. Somehow, somewhere, he had gotten hold of an
object so valuable that he had risked his self-esteem in attempting to
establish contact.
If
too hasty action were taken, that knowledge might be lost.
Even as he walked on through the room, the
mutation silently reaffirmed his purpose. A moment later, he entered the
office, and informed the barbarian officer there, that he had come for the job
of taking care of the relics of the atom gods.
The
big man stood up, and squinted down at him, gave an almost naive start of
recognition, and then called two soldiers from the hallway.
And
then he said, "Lord Clane Linn, you are under arrest."
To
one of the soldiers he commanded, "Get ropes. Tie him up."
Meekly, the mutation
submitted to being bound.
24
the moment the news arrived, Czinczar headed for Linn.
He was met on the roof of the central palace by Meewan. The big man had a smile
on his plump, good-fellow face. "Your theory was right," he said
admiringly. "You thought he would take a chance at the critical period of
the invasion. He arrived this morning."
"Tell
me exactly how you accepted his services." The golden voice spoke softly.
The strange face was thoughtful as the other man gave his detailed account.
There seemed no end to his interest. When the story was finished, he asked
question after question. Each answer seemed merely to stimulate new questions.
Meewan said finally, querulous-ly:
'Tour
excellency, I have no doubt that our men have put the best face on the capture,
to make themselves look good. They claim to have captured him as he entered the
building, before he could do anything, or touch anything. Since they're a lax
bunch of rascals, I question this. But what does it matter? What are you
doubtful about?"
That
gave Czinczar pause; he had not realized how tense he was. After all, he told himself, the situation was simple enough. He had
issued an open invitation for temple scientists to come and take care of
"some god-metal relics" which had fallen into possession of the
conquerors. It was a cleverly worded request, designed to wiii general approval
from the defeated even as it drew the temple
scientist to his own undoing. Its only stipulation, very guardedly worded, was
that in return for the privilege of sharing the "safeguarding of the
relics," experiments should be continued as if no war were being waged.
"The
gods," Czinczar had said sanctimoniously in the invitation, "are
above the petty quarrels of mankind."
Apparently,
at least one of its purposes was accomplished. The mutation himself had applied
for the job. Czinczar meditated cautiously on tactics. "Bring him
here," he said finally. "We can't take any risks of his having
established control over anything at his house. We know too little and he too
much."
While
he waited, he examined the rod of force—which' was one of the few workable
instruments that had been found in the house. He was not a man who accepted
past truths as final. The fact that it had worked a week ago did not mean that
it would work now. He tested it from a great window, pointing it at the upper
foliage of a nearby tree. No sound, no visible light spewed forth—but the upper
section of the tree crashed down onto a pathway below. Czinczar experienced the
satisfaction of a logical man whose logic had proved correct. It was not an
uncommon satisfaction. From the early days when he had been a back country
transcriber of messages to the days of his rise to power, he had taken risks
which seemed necessary, no more, no less. Even now he could not be sure that
the atomic wizard, Lord Clane, would not defeat him by some decisive wile.
For several minutes, he pondered that, and then ordered a box brought in from
the ice room of the palace. The contents of the box had come all the way from
Europa packed in ice. He was indicating to the slaves where to place the box
when an officer burst breathlessly into the throne room.
"Excellency,"
he cried. "Hundreds of spaceships. It's an attack."
Standing
at the window a moment later, watching the ships settling down, Czinczar-
realized that his hazy suspicions had been correct. The appearance of Clane in
the city was part of a planned maneuver, which would now run its deadly course.
It was a pleasure to know that Lord Clane himself was caught in a trap.
He
wasted no time watching a battle which he could not hope to see from the palace
in any important detail. He issued quick instructions ordering the ice-packed
box sent after him, and wrote a note for Meewan. Then he rode with a strong
escort to the headquarters of the reserve army in the middle of the city.
The
reserve contained a barbarian core, but, like the main defense of the city, it
was overwhelmingly made up of slaves. Czinczar's arrival was greeted by a roar
of excitement. The cheers did not die down until long after he had entered the
building.
He
talked over the situation with some of the slave officers, and found them calm
and confident. According to their estimates sixty thousand Linnan soldiers had
landed in the first wave. The fact that that was exactly the number of
barbarians who had originally invaded the city did not seem to occur to the
slaves. But the comparison struck Czinczar sharply. He wondered if it was
designed to have some symbolical meaning. The possibility made him sardonic.
Not symbols but swords spoke the language of victory.
As the afternoon dragged on, the Linnan
attack was being held everywhere. The box, still dripping, was delivered from
the palace about three. Since there was no longer any immediate danger,
Czinczar sent a messenger to Meewan. At three-thirty Meewan came in grinning
broadly. He was followed by slave Linnans carrying a sedan chair. In the
chair, bound hand and foot, was the acting Lord Leader of Linn. There was
complete silence as the chair was set down, and the slaves withdrew.
Clane
studied the barbarian leader with genuine interest. The question was, could this strong, fine-looking military genius be
panicked into thinking that the atom gods existed? Panicked now, during the
next half hour? Fortunately, for the first time in his career as an atomic
scientist, he had behind him the greatest power ever developed by the wizards
of the fabulous days of the legends. He saw that the impersonal expression on
the other's face was transforming into the beginning of contempt.
"I
am speaking," Czinczar said in a sarcastic tone, "to Lord Clane Linn?
We have not made a mistake?"
Clane
couldn't let the opening pass. "No mistake," he said quietly. "I
came into Linn for the sole purpose of talking to you while the battle was on.
And here I am."
It
must have sounded ridiculous, coming from a man bound as he was. The guards
guffawed, and Meewan giggled. Only Czinczar showed no sign. And his marvelous
voice was as steady as steel as he said, "I have not the time to flirt
with words, nor the inclination. I can see that you are counting on something
to save you, and I presume it has something to do with your knowledge of atomic
energy."
He
fingered the rod of force suggestively. "So far as I can see, we can kill
you in less than a second whenever we desire."
Clane
shook his head. "You are in error. It is quite impossible for you to kill
me."
There
was a sound from Meewan. The engineer came forward. "Czinczar," he
said darkly, "this man is intolerable.
Give
me permission to slap his face, and we shall see if his atom gods protect him
from indignity."
Czinczar
waved him aside. But he stared down at the prisoner with eyes that were
abnormally bright. The swiftness with which tension had come into the room
amazed him. And, incredibly, it was the prisoner who had seized the
advantage—"Impossible to kill me!" In one sentence he dared them to
make the attempt.
There
was a crinkle of frown in Czinczar's forehead. He had been careful in his
handling of Clane as a matter of common sense, not because he actually anticipated
disaster. But now, quite frankly, he admitted to himself that the man was not
reacting normally. The words Clane had spoken had a ring in them, a conviction
that could no longer be ignored. The purpose of his own invasion of the Linnan empire could be in danger.
He
said urgently, "I have something to show you. No attempt will be made to
kill you until you have seen it. For your part, do nothing hasty,
take no action, whatever power you have, until you have gazed with
understanding."
He
was aware of Meewan giving him an astounded glance. "Power!"
exclaimed the designer, and it was like a curse. "The power he has!"
Czinczar
paid no attention. This was his own special secret,
and there could be no delay.
"Guards," he
said, "bring that box over here."
It
was soaking wet when they brought it. It left a dirty trail of water on the
priceless rug, and a pool began to accumulate immediately in the place where it
was set down. There was a delay while sweating men pried off the top. Even the
guards at far doors strained to see the contents. A gasp of horror broke the
tension of waiting.
What
was inside was about eight feet long. Its width was indeterminable, for it
seemed to have folds in its body that gave an impression of great size. It had
obviously died only a short time before it was packed in the ice. It looked
fresh, almost alive, there in its case of ice, unhuman, staring with sightless
eyes at the ornate ceiling.
"Where did you get
it?" Clane asked at last.
"It
was found on one of the moons—within hours after a strange ship was sighted."
"How long ago?"
the mutation spoke in a steady tone.
"Two
years, Earth time."
"It
would seem that whoever was in the ship will have departed by now."
Czinczar
shook his head. "Miners found a second body exactly like this on a
meteorite in a spacesuit—seven months ago."
For
a long time, the mutation gazed down at the creature. Finally, he looked, and
his eyes met Czinczar's waiting gaze. He said slowly, "What is your theory?"
"A non-human race of great scientific attainments. Ruthless, unfriendly—for there are reports
of sudden destruction in outlying areas of Europa which puzzled me until this
body was found ... I tend to wonder
if this might not be a second visitation to the solar system. I cannot give you
briefly all the logical relationships I have visualized, but my feeling is that
the civilization of the golden age was destroyed by the first visitation."
Clane
said, "I am glad that you have shown me this, but what is your purpose in
doing so?"
Czinczar
drew a deep breath. And made his second move to avert the
catastrophe suggested by every action and manner of this unorthodox prisoner.
He said, "It would be a grave
error for either of us to destroy each other's armies."
"You are asking for
mercy?"
That
was too strong to take. The barbarian showed his teeth in a snarl. "I am
asking for common sense," he said.
"It's
impossible," said Clane. "The people must have their revenge. In
victory, they will accept nothing less than your death."
The
words brought an obscene curse from Meewan. "Czinczar," he shouted,
"what is all this nonsense? I have never seen you like this. I follow no
man who accepts defeat in advance. I'll show you what well do with this . . .
this—" He broke off: "Guards, put a spear into him."
Nobody
moved. The soldiers looked uneasily at Czinczar, who nodded coolly. "Go
right ahead," he said. "If he can be kiUed, I'd like to know."
Still
nobody moved. It was apparently too mild an order, or
something of the leader's tension had communicated to the men. They looked at
each other, and they were standing there doubtfully when Meewan snatched a
sword from one of them, and turned towards the bound man.
That
was as far as he got. Where he had been was a ball of light.
"Try,"
came the voice of Clane, "to use the rod of force
against me." A fateful pause. "Try. It won't
kill you."
Czinczar
raised the rod of force, and pressed the activator. Nothing happened—Wait! The
ball of light was growing brighter.
Clane's
voice split the silence tantalizingly. "Do you still not believe in the
gods?"
"I
am astonished," said Czinczar, "that you do not fear the spread of
superstition more than the spread of knowledge. We so-called barbarians,"
he said proudly, "despise you for your attempt to fence in the human
spirit. We are free thinkers, and all your atomic energy will fail in the end
to imprison us."
He
shrugged. "As for your control over that ball, I do not pretend to understand
it."
At
last, he had shocked the mutation out of his ice-cold manner. "You
actually," said Clane incredulously, "do not believe in the atom
gods?"
"Guards,"
shouted Czinczar piercingly, "attack him from every side."
The
ball of light flickered but did not seem to move. There were no guards.
"Now do you
belive?" Clane asked.
The barbarian looked
haggard and old. But he shook his head. "I have lost the war," he
mumbled. "Only that I recognize. It is up to you to take up the mantle
which has fallen from my shoulders." He broke off, "What in the name of your gods is that ball?"
"It contains the
entire sidereal universe."
Czinczar
knit his brow, and leaned forward, as if he were trying to understand.
"The
what universe?" he asked at last.
"When
you look inside through a hollow tube," Clane explained patiently,
"you see stars. It's like a window into space—only it's not a window. It's
the universe itself."
The
barbarian leader looked genuinely bewildered. "This universe?" he said,
blankly.
Clane
nodded, but made no comment. It hadn't been easy to grasp so vast an idea, even
with the written explanations that he had found.
Czinczar
shook his head. "You mean, the Earth is in
there?" He pointed at the glowing sphere.
"It's
a fourth dimensional idea," said Clane; and still he remained patient. He
could recognize a bemused man when he saw one. It was not the moment to press
any other point.
TPhe
barbarian narrowed his eyes, and said at last, "How can you get a large
object into a smaller one?" His tone appealed for a logical explanation.
Clane shrugged. "When largeness or
smallness are illusions of viewpoints, the problem does not exist."
Czinczar
scowled at that, and straightened. "I have been assuming," he said,
"that at this point in our relations you would be speaking nothing but
truth. Evidently, you are not prepared to tell me anything valid about your
weapon. Naturally, I reject this fanciful story."
Clane
shook his head, but said nothing. He had given the only explanation he had, and
it had run up against the other man's magnificent realism. Not that he blamed
the barbarian. Only gradually had he himself been able to accept the idea that
matter and energy were different than they appeared to the sense perceptions of
the body.
But now it was time to act, to force, to
convince. The bonds fell from him as if they did not exist. He stood up, and
now that crown among all the jewels of the ages rode above his head in a
matchless perfect rhythm with his movements.
Czinczar
said stubbornly, "It would be a mistake to kill any able-bodied man, slave
or otherwise."
Clane said, "The gods
demand absolute surrender."
Czinczar
said in fury, "You fool, I am offering you the
solar system! Has this monster in the box not changed your mind in the
slightest degree?"
"It has."
"But then-"
"I
do not," said Clane, "believe in joint leadership arrangements."
A pause.
Then Czinczar said, "You have come far—who once used atomic power merely
to stay alive."
"Yes," said
Clane, "I have come far."
Czinczar
frowned down at the thing in the box. "The real threat to Linn is there.
Will you promise to try for the Lord Leadership?"
"I," Clane said,
"can promise nothing."
They
looked at each other, two men who almost understood each other. It was
Czinczar who broke the silence. "I make an absolute surrender," he
said, and it was a sigh, "to you and you alone, of all my forces—in the
belief that you have the courage and common sense to shirk none of your new
duties as Protector of the Solar System. It was a role," he finished
somewhat unnecessarily, "that I originally intended for myself."
In a well-guarded room in a remote suburb of
Linn, a' core of energy rolled sedately back and forth
along a narrow path. In all the solar system there was nothing else like that
core. It looked small, but that was an illusion of man's senses. The books that
described it, and the men who had written the books, knew but a part of its
secrets.
They
knew that the micro-universe inside it pulsed with a multiform of minus forces.
It reacted to cosmic rays and atomic energy like some insatiable sponge. No
sub-molecular energy released in its presence could escape it. And the moment
it reached its own strange variation of critical mass it could start a meson
chain reaction in anything it touched.
One
weakness it had and men had seized upon that in their own greedy fashion. It
imitated thought. Or so it seemed. So it seemed.
The
great question that Clane, and before him the ancients, asked after observing
this remarkable characteristic, was: Did this mean that . . . man controlled
the universe, or that the universe controlled man?
■ I
! - '--i<im.t \ ir ,
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