Imperial Stars 1-The Stars at War (17 page)

"Very possibly," Molane answered with a smile, "but I doubt that they breathe fire, which real dragons are supposed to do."

"You never can tell," said
Lapis Lazuli
, with a gentle smile in her voice. "And now shall I tell you about the people?"

"Please," Lahaisa answered.

"As you know, Saul Gilpin's star drive came at a time of suspicion and tension and pervading terror, a time when men and women fearful for themselves and for their families would follow any prophet who offered what they hungered for subconsciously, sometimes a nonexistent Eden, sometimes cruel dominion over their fellows, sometimes simply death. It was one of these cults that sought out this planet, taking second choice because they knew a much more powerful expedition had picked the Fourth. They were not a wicked cult. Their leader, Gurat Singh, had started out as a devout Sikh, but had then split off, preaching simplicity, non-aggression, and a deep distrust of high technology. He converted thousands, first in the English-speaking countries, then in South America and along the rim of Asia, Hongkong, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Taiwan, and finally in his native India. Nearly three thousand fled Earth with him. Few of them were rich, and the ships that carried them were all they could afford. Like all Gilpin ships in those early days, they were converted submarines, mostly huge old tankers with rough accomodations, not only for the people, but also for the beasts Gurat Singh insisted they take with them. Taking embryos would have entailed too much of the high technology he despised. It was only reluctantly, and because he could not reverse what had become common practice, that he accepted the sensors and synthesizers aboard every Gilpin ship, the data storage that had virtually replaced the printed word, the navigational computers, even all those small devices used to keep individual records and solve petty mathematical problems. Their ships were few, and space was terribly limited, so possessions were strictly limited. We can assume that, whether Gurat Singh approved or not, they were as dependent on their electronics as those others. That is all we really know. Because the Far Outers who last touched down on Four decided to bypass Six, we don't even know how many of them made it through Gilpin's Space."

"What do you think of their chances?" Molane asked.

"Just of getting there? They were good. They were not hostile people. Instead they were fleeing hostility. Such people were much less likely to come apart when the space-voices started to scream their agonies and insanities into their minds while they were asleep."

They spent an hour or two discussing possibilities, quite sure that the Sixth Planet had been hit by whatever it was that had ravaged Four, and saddened now by the seeming certainty of what they would find there. But Arilé cheered them again with mind-music, letting it sing of the myriad calm, settled, burgeoning worlds that swam the seas of space.

Their approach was, of course, through Gilpin's Space, so that the planet's ghost-shape swelled suddenly in their view-ports, tenuous and uncanny in the non-light. It grew, and
Lapis Lazuli
told them that besides its three moons it had two moonlets, but that there was no sign of artificial satellites. They slowed, coming in from the night side. They watched, all of them.

And then they saw that the Sixth Planet was not dead, not as the Fourth had been, for lights were shining in the night, tiny elfin ghost-glows clustered here and there.

"They live!" cried big Orano, Molane's uncle. "Praise the Guardians! There are cities there."

They made a first careful survey from Gilpin's Space. One continent, the northernmost, was ribbed and girdled with ferocious mountains, snowclad, seeming to dwarf even Nix Olympica. They surrounded an immense rolling taiga cut by mighty rivers, and itself broken by more gentle grassy plains. There were four true continents, not contiguous, and a number of large islands—Ceylons, Tasmanias, Madagascars. These lay between and around the two central continents, one of which was an enormous fantasy of mountains, jungles, deserts. The southernmost continent began as verdant prairie, climbed up, up, range by hilly range, and finished as a veritable Antarctica of glaciers.

They followed the moving line of daylight, shuttling north and south as the land was lighted, knowing that
Lapis Lazuli
would be counting settlements and cities. Roads crossed the continents, and railroads. Ships plied the seas and the great rivers. Over the cities, there were no palls of smoke, no winding-sheets of smog.

The largest cities were not on the continents but on the great islands, and most were seaports. The Eight looked at them in wonder, descending in the ghost-light to barely a stone's-throw above their towers. Each city's structures were hauntingly, tantalizingly familiar. In the streets, self-powered vehicles moving; in the far-flung fields, self-powered machines were harvesting. The clothing worn by the men and women whom they saw was, again, familiar and yet, looked at more closely, totally new and strange.

From island to island, the architecture varied. On one, it was as if they were flying over Europe, but a Europe with vast sections of its history surgically removed. Over another, Lahaisa exclaimed that it was like looking down on the ruins of Singapore, Shanghai, Madras, long before they had fallen into ruin. And there were others which, echoing old Europe, were even more removed: echoing what? the mixed cultures of old South America?

There were fewer communities on the continents— mountain scarps crowned by settlements; towns in the heart of jungles surrounded by defensive works: against intelligent, hostile natives? against whatever dangerous brutes the planet nurtured?

They asked
Lapis Lazuli
, who repeated that the first discoverers had found no sign of indigenous intelligence.

They scanned each of the continents, each of the great islands. "Could you estimate the population?" Molane asked.

"Give or take ten percent," she answered, "about two hundred million, with perhaps seventy percent on the great islands."

"Look at what they've accomplished!" marveled Arilé. "Could they possibly have been hit by whatever it was on Four?"

"Well, there's only one way to find out," Molane said. "We'll have to monitor their radiation spectrum from normal space. If their ship's nuke-paks haven't been utterly drained, there'll still be some indication. Also we'll have to check their communications media, find out what kind of languages they're speaking, and see if we can get in contact."

Landing on an inhabited world with an advanced culture without first getting permission from one authority or another was something they never did.

"Where do you want to make the shift?" the ship asked.

"I think on their closest moon, in its dark sector."

Moments later, Goldenrod Six was receding, shrinking. The closest moon, perhaps half the size of Earth's was getting larger, the details of its rough face were becoming visible. They touched down on a worn crater's rim, and shifted into normal space immediately.

"What do you get?" Molane asked after a few moments.

"Nothing, absolutely nothing," the ship replied. "There simply are no nuclear devices on that planet. Whatever they had with them has been sucked dry. And I detect no video signals of any sort—just radio, and very sparingly. There's nowhere near the noise you'd normally expect, and I've scanned every band. Another thing—there's no music, just talk. Apparently they don't use radio for entertainment."

"That's understandable, isn't it?" Arilé said. "After what happened to them, they're probably still scared of another visitation. What language are they speaking?"

"Listen!"

Suddenly a man's voice filled the ship's wardroom, clipped, oddly accented, but still recognizable as English, antique and changed, but changed far less than might have been expected.

"I wonder if English has become their universal language?" commented Orano, of them all the most competent with ancient tongues. "When a language has no real competition, it evolves more slowly, like Old Norse on Earth which hardly differed from Icelandic a thousand years later. We'll be able to understand each other. Shall I make the first approach?"

"Do that.
Lapis Lazuli
, please send a signal on their busiest band—and put all the power you can into it."

"Done," said
Lapis Lazuli
. "You're on the air."

Orano spoke, his voice deep and melodious, each word slowly enunciated, precisely carved. "We are eight people from Old Earth, man's birthplace. We have come to you through Gilpin's Space, as your ancestors came. Much has changed on Earth. Even man has changed. We now make it our mission to seek out all men everywhere. Our vessel rests on your nearest moon, waiting. Will you speak with us?"

They listened, and at first there was no change. The voices on their frequency kept on, talking about the weather, matters economic, news incomprehensible out of context.

Orano repeated his message once again.

And again there was no reaction.

He spoke a third time—and abruptly the voices stilled.

Minutes passed. Then Orano spoke once more, and this time an answer came.

"We have heard you!" a man's voice said. "Please be patient. Arrangements must be made for someone with adequate authority to speak with you. You are the first visitors we have ever had except—except the Eater."

"We shall wait eagerly," answered Orano.

Half an hour went by. Finally,

"I am Lord Burlow Erris," a new voice declared, "First Secretary to His Majesty's Government—"

Lord?
thought Molane.
His Majesty?
He and Orano exchanged glances.

"—His Majesty and the Privy Council have told me what to say to you. If you are really from Old Earth, we do not want you here. Our Own Gilpin ships brought the Eater, the living terror that destroyed everything electrical and electronic, and even though we no longer are so vulnerable, we fear this."

"Lord Erris, our Gilpin ship today is undetectable. We can not endanger you. We want only to tell you what we have learned, on Earth. We want to help you if we can. Did not your own
sant
, Gurat Singh, declare that all mankind is One?"

"When the Eater came," Lord Erris answered, "all that was changed—even Gurat Singh, blessed be his name! We know that even if you do not bring the Eater, you will bring us back all those uncontrolled evils from which we fled."

"No, Lord Erris, we will not. We too have changed. Old Earth has suffered much, and in that suffering all our age-old passions, all our fury to destroy, which you so justly fear, have been bred out of us. You must believe me."

"
Must
I?" There was more than disbelief in Lord Erris' voice—there was contempt. "And if you have, what then? Here we have learned to live with those same passions, to master them. But enough. I gather you would like to walk among us, and see what's to be seen, and breathe our air. Therefore I must again consult my master, the King-Emperor. Will you wait?"

They waited patiently, speculating on what quirk of fate had placed a King-Emperor and his Privy Council and a peerage here so many centuries after all these had been dead on Earth. Four hours later, the invitation came.

"I am honored," said Lord Erris, "to announce that His Majesty King Edward, the Eleventh of his name on this world, has consented to your visit. Because you have a Gilpin ship, and we have not forgotten their capabilities, it really wouldn't matter where you first come down, but under present circumstances we prefer to show you precisely where. We are at war with the Holy Roman Empire, and—"

"You are
what?
" exclaimed Molane.

"We are at
war
. Surely you, from Old Earth, are familiar with the term? In any case, the war will not inconvenience you, for it is being fought far from Great Britain, on the Asian Continent. Besides, your permission will be limited. His Majesty wishes to look at you himself, and otherwise make certain you pose no danger to us."

"We understand. Where do you want us to come down?"

"Are you equipped to pinpoint a radio signal's origin?"

"Certainly." Molane signed to
Lapis Lazuli
, and the hologram of Goldenrod Six appeared instantly.

"Great Britain is the larger of our two most central islands, and London, our capital, is its greatest city. I am speaking from Hampton Court Palace, in its outskirts. You may land in the great meadow between the Palace and the park. You will have no trouble locating it from Gilpin's Space, for we will have a pavilion there for His Majesty. We shall expect you in two hours, roughly at mid-morning."

On the island's eastern shore, a brilliant spot of light appeared.
Lapis Lazuli
had pinpointed the transmitter.

"Thank you, Lord Erris," said Orano. "We will be there."

The contact ended. The hologram disappeared.

Molane looked at the others. "A British Empire? A Holy Roman Empire? And are they actually at war? What next?"

"They have
dragons!
" cried the boy Kolali. "
Real
dragons!"

London, like its Old Earth ancestor, was built along a great river and near the sea. It had its miles of docks, its bridges, and even from Gilpin's Space it seemed at once utterly strange and yet curiously familiar. Here and there, spires and steeples of its churches stood out from their surrounding buildings, a massive dome which could have been St. Paul's lording it over them. The Palace was not hard to find, for the grassland between it and its vast park held a small crowd, kept from a clearly defined landing area by orderly ranks of men in uniform. Beside that area, a pavilion stood. There, Molane judged, the King would be awaiting them.

"We'll have to dress for the occasion," he said. "Their women all wear skirts and dresses; their men either are in trousers or what look like jodhpur breeches, with a variety of upper garments. I'd suggest we come as close to these as possible."

He put on a pair of trousers, and over them a long jacket much like a soutane, and the others followed suit. Lahaisa donned a silver gown that left one shoulder bare. The colors all were muted, pale blues and greens, soft yellows with complicated knots of gold embroidery. The ship touched down. At Molane's signal, she shifted into normal space, and through the ports they could see the crowd's startlement.