Gordon R. Dickson (15 page)

“Do you know who it is I have chosen to be your final leader?” Jim asked in a hard, deep-voiced tone when the young soldier was almost literally carried by the two Starkiens to stand before him.

The colonial soldier’s teeth chattered so badly he could not make a coherent answer. But he shook his head violently. Jim made a short sound of anger and contempt, deep in his throat.

“Never mind,” he said harshly. “You know who controls the area behind your section of the perimeter?”

“Yes… .” The young soldier nodded his head eagerly.

“Go to him,” said Jim. “Tell him I’ve changed my plans. He’s to take over command of your people now, without waiting.”

Jim waited. The young soldier trembled.

“Do you understand me?” Jim shot at him.

The prisoner went into a violent convulsion of nodding.

“Good,” said Jim. “Adok, take him outside. I want a word with my adjutant before you go.”

Adok shepherded the prisoner out beyond the mesh fence. Jim turned and beckoned both Harn and the Governor to him. He pointed down at the camp.

“Now,” he said to the Governor, “point out to the adjutant the part of the perimeter lying outside the area that your cousin Cluth will be occupying.”

The Governor shrank a little from Jim, apparently infected by the fear of the prisoner, and stretched out a trembling forefinger to indicate to Harn the section Jim had mentioned. Harn asked a few questions to make certain of the location and then turned to Jim.

“You want me to take the prisoner back there?” he asked Jim.

“That’s right, Adjutant,” said Jim.

“Yes, sir,” said Harn, and went out through the mesh fence.

This time the trip took them nearer an hour of earthly time. The moment they returned, with word that they had set the prisoner to walking forward and heard him challenged and picked up by the soldiers of Cluth’s perimeter, Jim ordered them all out of the sentry post and back down the slope toward their vessel.

They went swiftly, at Jim’s orders. It was not until they were fully airborne that Jim relaxed. Then he ordered Adok, who was at the controls, to take the ship up and out to the farthest possible distance from which their night-vision screens could keep view on the camp. Adok obeyed. Some six or eight minutes later they settled into a circling patrol some fifteen thousand feet up and ten miles’ ground distance from the camp. As silently as a cloud itself, the reconnaissance vessel swung like a huge toy at the end of an invisible string better than ten miles long about the drowsy armed camp below.

Jim sat unmoving, gazing at the night-vision screen in the control area beyond Adok, up in the front of the ship. With him sat Harn, the Governor, and, for that matter, Adok himself, all gazing at the screen, but, with the exception of Jim, with no idea of what they were watching for.

For quite a while it seemed that their watch would produce nothing out of the ordinary. Reaching out, Jim worked the telescopic controls of the night screen, from time to time zooming in for a view of the streets and buildings. The night patrols were going their rounds without incident. Most of the buildings were dark. And so it continued.

Then, without warning, there was a little wink of light, hardly brighter than the blink of a flashlight, in what seemed the center of the Governor’s council-quarters building.

“I think that’s—” Jim was beginning, when Harn threw himself past him, literally tore the control out of Adok’s hands, and sent the small craft twisting away, fleeing at top speed from the scene they had just been watching.

Adok, trained soldier that he was, did not fight his superior officer except for a first instinctive grab at the controls as they were taken from him. He slipped out of the control seat and let Harn take his place.

Jim leaned forward and spoke in Harn’s ear.

“Antimatter?” Jim asked.

Harn nodded. A moment later the shock wave hit, and the little vessel went tumbling end over end through the night sky, like some insignificant insect swatted by the paw of some monster.

Harn, clinging to the controls, finally got the ship back on an even keel. Within, they were all of them battered to a certain extent. The little Governor was only half-conscious, and his nose was bleeding. Jim helped Adok to prop the little man up on his feet and buckle his seat harness around him. Ironically, not one of them had his harness buckled at the moment they had been struck by the shock wave.

“Is there any point in our going back?” Jim asked Harn. The adjutant shook his head. “There’ll be nothing to see,” he said. “Only a crater.”

“How much antimatter would you judge was involved in that?” Jim asked.

Harn shook his head.

“I’m no expert in amounts, sir,” he said. “The total unit is about as big as you can hold comfortably in one hand. But that’s for convenience. The effective element inside it may be no larger than a grain of sand, for all I know… . Sir?”

“Yes?” said Jim.

“If I may ask, sir,” said Harn evenly, “what made you believe that there was antimatter down in that camp?”

“It was a guess, Adjutant,” said Jim somberly. “Based on a lot of factors—here and back on the Throne World.”

“It was a trap, then,” said Harn, without perceptible emotion in his voice. “A trap for me and my—I beg your pardon, sir—your Starkiens. We were meant to go in through the door they left open—that unguarded direct descent upon the main building. The whole Ten-unit would have been wiped out.”

He was silent.

“But, sir,” said Adok, looking first at him, then turning to Jim, “these colonials must’ve known that they’d be wiped out too?”

“What makes you think they’d know, Starkien?” said Harn. “There was no reason that whoever supplied them with that antimatter should have wanted them to know what they were handling.”

Adok subsided. After a few moments Harn spoke again to Jim.

“Sir?” he said. “Could I ask the commander what noyaux are?”

“Social groups, Adjutant,” said Jim. “Family groups whose chief occupation is badgering, insulting, and struggling with other family groups in every way short of actual fighting.”

“These”—Harn glanced for a moment at the Governor—“form noyaux?”

“Their chief families do,” said Jim. “Ordinarily their bickering just gives them something to do, because subconsciously they don’t intend to harm each other, no matter how much they may believe consciously that they’re ready to fight at the drop of a hat. But the point is, the noyaux never trust each other. When that soldier of Notral’s perimeter guard was brought in and questioned, Cluth leaped at the conclusion that he had been betrayed by whomever from the Throne World gave him the antimatter. He made an effort to take it back from wherever it was being guarded, and some accident set it off. I hadn’t hoped for that so much as for a splitting up of the encampment, which would give us a chance to swoop down on Cluth’s party and take the antimatter back from him.”

“I see, sir,” said Harn. He said nothing for a second. “And now, sir?”

“Now,” said Jim grimly, “we head back to the Throne World as quickly as possible.”

“Sir!” acknowledged Harn.

He said no more after that, and both Jim and Adok sat without speaking. In the little vessel there was silence, until the Governor, recovering full consciousness, began to mourn his dead cousin, with mutterings of Cluth’s name, and stifled, low-voiced sobs.

The ship that had brought Jim and the Starkiens to this world was a smaller version of the space-going vessel that had brought Jim back from Alpha Centauri III. It was just big enough to hold the Ten-units of men, and required only one individual on duty watch in the ship’s Power Room. It was directed by the same economical method according to which most things owned by the Highborn were run. Whoever was in command of the ship merely visualized his destination and left it to the ship to pick up that visualization, resolve it, match it with the destination itself, and bring the ship to it. On their outward-bound voyage from the Throne World, it had been Harn II who had directed the ship, since Jim had no mental picture of their destination. Now, headed back to the Throne World, Jim needed no help. He needed only to visualize any spot on the surface of the Throne World—his own quarters, if need be—and the ship would take over from there. He did so, and the ship obeyed.

As they were about to land, however, he took Harn II and Adok aside.

“Adjutant,” he said to Harn, “I want you to keep the men aboard ship here after we land. Don’t go directly to your quarters to report back. Wait here in the ship until I send for you.”

Harn stood still without saying anything for a long second.

“This is against usual practice,” he said at last. “I assume it’s an order?”

“It’s an order,” said Jim.

“In that case …” said Harn, “the only thing that can override it would be either orders from the Emperor or reason for us to believe that our staying aboard would be contrary to the Emperor’s wishes. After what we’ve been through, I’m inclined not to think that these orders of yours can be contrary to the Emperor’s wishes.”

“You can believe me, Adjutant,” said Jim slowly. “It’s the Emperor’s welfare I’m concerned about. And that welfare may be better served if you men stay out of sight aboard this ship instead of going back to your quarters.”

“Sir!” said Harn II acknowledgingly. “You’re returning to your own quarters, Sir?”

“I am,” said Jim, “and I’m taking Adok with me.”

He touched Adok on the arm and shifted them both back into his own quarters. They were empty. He shifted to Ro’s apartment.

Ro was there, in the room with all her pets—hers and Afuan’s—cutting the nails of the apelike creature. But she dropped her tools and practically tackled him in her enthusiasm at seeing him again.

“Jim!” she said. “Jim! …”

He let her squeeze him for a moment, and hugged her back briefly. Then, patting her head gently, he reached behind him and unlocked the grip of her hands so as to put her arms away from him.

“I’m sorry,” he said gently. “But the situation’s rather urgent.”

She giggled, almost wickedly, ignoring the fact that he held her hands. Her eyes ran over him.

“Is that your Starkien uniform?” she asked. “How big you look in it! … Are those bands you’re wearing still powered?”

“Yes,” said Jim, not knowing quite what to make of this sudden, mad humor of hers, and hoping that a calm answer would calm her as well.

“They are?” she giggled again. “Show me! Smash that wall there down for me—”

She broke off suddenly and did sober up.

“No, no. What am I saying?” Abruptly the ridiculous humor was gone from her. She looked up at him gravely. “What is it Jim? You look worried!”

“Worried?” He let go of her wrists. “Not exactly—but there may be something going on to be worried about. Tell me, Ro. What on the Throne World here is blue?”

“Blue? You mean the color blue?” she asked. He nodded his head. “Why … white is the color we usually use. You know that. Occasionally, a little red. I don’t think there is much blue on the Throne World nowadays, except a stray object or two that one of the Highborn might’ve brought back from one of the Colonial Worlds.”

“Think,” said Jim, staring steadily at her. “Think hard.”

“But, there really isn’t any—oh,” Ro interrupted herself, “unless you want to count the usual things. The sky here is blue. And the water is blue. Oh, and”—she paused to smile again—“there’s the Emperor’s Blue Beast still hidden somewhere in the palace someplace, if you want to count that.”

“Blue Beast?” His question was so sharp and abrupt that she paled.

“Why, yes, Jim,” she said, staring at him, “but it’s nothing. It’s just a toy that he used to have when he was a baby. Only he started to have nightmares about it, and they hid it from him. I don’t know who hid it, or where it was hidden, and I don’t think anybody knows nowadays. But it got so bad that anything blue-colored was likely to—upset him. That’s why there’s never anything blue left lying around where the Emperor might see it. Why is it so important to you?”

He heard the question at the end of her speech, but it was like hearing an unimportant noise far off. His mind was whirring, and he did not bother to answer her.

“I’ve got to see Vhotan right away,” he said. “How do I find him, Ro?”

“Jim, what is it?” She was really alarmed now. “Vhotan’s with the Emperor. You can’t just go charging in on the Emperor. Oh, I know you did it once and got away with it. But you can’t do it now. Particularly now.”

“Why, particularly now?” Jim asked.

She took a small step back from him.

“Jim …” she said, uncertainly. “Don’t …”

Jim made an effort to return his face to calmness.

“All right,” he said. “Now tell me. Why is now so particular?”

“It’s just that right now there’s all this trouble going on, on the Colony Worlds,” said Ro. “Vhotan’s been sending out Starkiens to help the Governors of the lesser races put down the trouble, until there aren’t any left here on the Throne World. He doesn’t have a moment to spare to talk to anyone—”

She broke off, staring at him again. “Jim, will you tell me what it is!”

But again he hardly heard her. His thoughts were galloping far ahead under the impetus of this new piece of information. For a moment he gazed unseeingly out the transparent window of the pets’ room at the ocean shore. An ocean shore, here too? The idea that Ro must carry a sandy beach and a piece of ocean around with her to provide a view for Afuan’s pets was so ridiculous that it jolted his thoughts back into effectiveness.

“I want to get in touch with Slothiel,” he said, looking back at Ro. “Then, the four of us—you, I, Slothiel, and Adok—must go and find Vhotan, whether he’s with the Emperor or not.”

“Are you crazy, Jim?” she said. “You can’t go into the Emperor’s presence wearing power bands like that! No one’s allowed in his presence with anything more than a rod. His Starkiens would kill you out of reflex the minute you appeared. If you have to do this wild thing, at least take those power bands off! You too, Adok!”

She glanced past him at the Starkien. Her own fingers were already busy stripping the power bands off Jim’s left arm. The wisdom of what she said was undeniable, and after a second he began to assist her. A moment later he had no weapon left but the rod in its loops at his belt. Looking around, he saw that Adok had similarly rid himself of power bands.