Imperial Stars 3-The Crash of Empire (3 page)

Here the air had its own texture, the sweat of work and reek of spices. Where the two men walked the crowds separated and let them through. Word had passed in the early morning, once the Priestfellows had met in the temple. Now surely everyone in the city knew the time of cusp was approaching. Thus and so: in the damp morning the two men journeyed through the city to the foundry that was the focus of the city itself: the birthplace of the Paralixlinnes.

Shibura glanced upward at friend Brutus, thanking the brown and pink giant for this day. His senses quickened.

The Captain listened intently to the whine of the air circulator. So that was breaking down, too. Nothing in this ship seemed to work anymore.

The last transit through Jumpspace had fractured an entire encasement of Paralixlinnes, even though they were rated to stand up for longer than a year. The ship—indeed, the whole Jump network—was well over into the red zone. With that many encasements gone the ship might well fail at the next Jump. Perhaps the Captain could make it through by enforcing absolute discipline on the next Jump, but he doubted it. Many of the backup men were not well trained; it seemed a corollary of life that political appointees never knew their jobs. But if he ran the calculation through a dozen times perhaps the errors would iron themselves out. A slight mistake in the measurement of the metric tensor, some small deviation in the settings, a flashover in the encasements—any of these, and the ship would blossom into a thousand fiery fragments.

The Captain clenched his hands behind his back and paced the organiform deck. The hooded computer modules were lit, and the sullen murmur of the bridge would be reassuring to one who did not know the facts. The Captain turned and glanced down the bridge. His Executive Officer was talking earnestly to one of the lieutenants. The Captain could be sure that whatever the conversation, it would not concern ship's business. The Executive Officer was a Constructionist, and most of the lieutenants were sharp enough to have fallen directly into line as soon as the ship left its last major port. The Captain knew there were lists aboard of each staff member's political inclination, and he expected the list would soon be used.

The Captain shrugged and turned away. Let the Executive Officer do what he would, this voyage was not finished and the ship was in far more peril than most of the officers realized. Politics could wait. If there was some failure at Seascape this ship might very well never leave realspace again. He turned his attention back to the large screen. They were following a smooth ellipse in toward the gas giant that loomed ahead. At the terminator the Captain could see flashes of gigantic lightning, even at this distance.

This planet was at least nine Jupiter masses; its compressed core burned with a lukewarm fusion reaction. The physics of the thing would make an interesting study. He had never visited this system before, and while reading the description had wondered why an experimental station did not orbit the gas giant for scientific purposes. But then he realized Seascape had a telescope and would see the station. No one wished to perturb the priests of Seascape with an artificial construct in their skies. Such things had proved unsettling on other worlds. So the great gas planet went unstudied and Seascape, according to the computer log, displayed very little social drift. The society there had lasted over ten thousand years, and the Captain was quite aware that he should do nothing to upset it.

He gave an order and the view shifted from the swirling bands to a point of light that orbited the great planet. The view expanded, focused. Seascape shimmered in blue-white. At first it appeared to have nothing but vast oceans, but as the eye accommodated to its light a few details emerged. Lumps of brown were strewn randomly, as though by a careless Creator. At the edge of the horizon lay the only continent. The Captain wondered idly if a drone Ramscoop was by chance making delivery now, but a quick scan of the orbital index indicated nothing around Seascape that would fit the parameters. He made a mental note to complain—for the
n
th time—about the lack of communication with the drone operation. Worlds like Seascape needed tools, cutting bits, sometimes rare metals and ceramics; if the drone were off schedule or failed in flight there was no way of knowing whether the client world was carrying on manufacture any longer. More than once the Captain had brought his ship out of Jump to find a servant world without necessary materials. Without the few pieces of crucial high technology that the Ramscoop should have brought, the manufacturing process broke down. Without a cause to move them the priests had to search for some other aim, and usually they failed. The world began to come apart at the seams. Not only was the Jumpship's mission worthless, but sometimes fatal damage was done to the client society itself.

The Captain ordered a further magnification and the mottled brown continent became a swollen mark on the planet's limb. There was a belt of jungle, a crinkling gray swath of interior mountains, convoluted snake-rivers and—in the island chains to the north—frigid blue wastes.

An orderly passed by; the Captain accepted a warm mug of amber liquid. He sipped at it gingerly, made a face. He paced the deck again till he came to an area of Organiform and then poured the cup into the floor. In the light gravity the drink made an odd slapping sound as it hit the Organiform and was absorbed.

The Captain glanced back at the screen, where the single continent was spreading over the edge of the planet.

Seascape was tidelocked so that the single continent always faced the banded giant. It was rare for an Earth-like planet to be a moon and even rarer when the geological mix in its crust was hospitable to man. The Captain wondered what it would be like to live on a world where the Sun was regularly eclipsed by a gas giant planet; what color was the halo? There were so many unique things about any world: winds that deafened, oceans that laughed, tranquility beside violence. Even the routine miracles of the xenobiologists could not wash away the taste and sound and smell of what was new and alien.

"Cap'n!"

The Captain turned. It was totally unnecessary to shout on the bridge. The Executive Officer was taking his time; he stopped and spat expertly into the Organiform carpet. The Captain went rigid.

"About time we sent them a burst, don't you think?" the other man said casually.

"It's day at their observatory."

"So what?"

"They cannot read laser flashes in broad daylight, obviously."

"Use radio. Hell—"

"Their culture was not designed to need or use radio. They haven't developed it and if we don't introduce it, perhaps they never will."

The Executive Officer regarded him shrewdly. "That's probably right."

"I know it is right," the Captain said.

"Yeah, I guess I could look it up if I had the time. I thought we ought to tell the natives we were coming in faster than usual."

The Captain regarded him with distant assessment. "And why is that?"

"We can't afford to spend much time here. Get the components and leave. There are good political reasons to be ahead of schedule this time."

"I see," the Captain said evenly. He glanced up at the screen where the ocean world was rolling toward them and savored the view one last time. His few moments of introspection had lifted some of his troubles, but now the weight of working with such men returned. He breathed deeply of the cycled air and turned back to the Executive Officer. Men might fly between the stars, threading across the sky, but they were still only men.

The message found them as they entered the Kodakan room.

Shibura padded quietly behind the Firstpriest. They had reached the door when he felt a slight tap on his shoulder and turned. A man stood beside him panting heavily in the thick air. The chanting from within drowned out his words. Shibura gestured and the man followed him out into the foyer of the holy foundry.

"We are beginning the game," Shibura said rapidly. "What is it?"

The man still gasped for breath. "From the Farseer." Pause. "Starcrossers."

"What?" Shibura felt a sudden unease.

"The Watcher sent me at the run. The Starcrossers will not circle the sky five times. They come two circles from now."

"That is not congruent with ritual."

"So the Watcher said. Is there a reply for the Watcher?"

Shibura paused. He should speak to the Firstpriest but he could not now interrupt the Kodakan. Yet the Watcher waited.

"Tell him to omit the Cadence of Hand and Star." He juggled things in his mind for a moment. "Tell the Watcher to spread word among the populace. The Firstpriest and I shall go to the small Farseer to watch the next circling of the sky. The Firstpriest will want to see if events are orderly among the Starcrossers."

The man nodded and turned to leave the foundry. Shibura reflected for a moment on his instructions and decided he could do no better without further thought. And he could not miss the Kodakan.

He entered the chamber quietly. He made the canonical hand passes diagonally across his body to induce emotions of wholeness and peace. The low hum of introduction was coming to an end. Shibura took his place in the folded hexagon of men and women and began his exercises, sitting erect. He aligned his spine and arms and found his natural balance. He raised his hands high and brought them down in a slow arc, breathing out, coming
down
into focus, outward-feeling. In his arm carrier he found the gameballs and beads. He began their juggling and watched as they caught the light in their counter cadences. Sprockets of red and blue light flashed as they tumbled in the air. The familiar dance calmed Shibura and he felt the beginnings of congruence in the men around him. Across the hexagon the Firstpriest juggled also, and a feeling of quietness settled. The sing-chant rose and then faded slowly in the soft acoustics of the room. The factory workers signaled readiness and Shibura began the game.

The first draw came across the hexagon where a worker of iron fingered his leaves nervously. The man chose a passage from the Tale and unfolded it as overture. The play fell first to the left, then to the right. It was a complex opening with subtle undertones of dread. Play moved on. Gradually, as the players selected their leaves and read them the problem gained in body and fullness.

For the older man came down from the hills on the day following, and being he of desperate measure, he sought to bargain on the rasping plain. Such was his mission of the flesh that he forgot the custom. There are things of trade and there are things not of trade; the old man forgot the difference. He sought gain. The things he loved he had made himself, but he knew not that to give to himself was necessary to find himself and others. There came a time . . .

All entries made, the play passed to Shibura. Shibura began the second portion of the Kodakan: proposal of solution. The draw danced among the players and the air thickened.

It came to this: you are one of two players. You can choose red or black. The other player is hidden and you hear only of his decisions. You know no other aspects of his nature.

If you both pick red, you gain a measure. If both choices are black, a measure is lost. But if you choose red and your opponent (fellow, mate, planet-sharer) votes black, he wins
two
measures, and you lose two.

In the end it gains most measure for all if all play together. He who cooperates in spirit, he who senses the Total—it is he who brings full measure to the Kodakan.

Kodakan is infinitely more complex than this simple trading of measures, but within the game there are the same elements.

Today the problem set by the workers carried subtle tension.

The Starcrossers come in audience yet they take from us our most valued.

If the Paralixlinnes be our consummation—

—Apostles of first divinity—

—Why should we give them over to the Starcrossers?

We shall suffer loss of Phase.

We shall lose our moorings. Go down into darkness.

But now the play returned to Shibura. He pointed out the automatic ships that came to Seascape. Did these machines without men not bring valued supplies, components for the working of the Paralixlinnes? Bore they not new and subtle devices? Delicate instruments, small lenses to bring insight to the making of the Paralixlinnes?

The gameballs danced and the spirit moved out from Shibura. The workers caught the harmony of the moment. Shibura indicated slight displeasure when divergent moods emerged, rebuked personal gain, and drew closer to the workers. The Firstpriest added tones of his own: praise of the workers; admiration of the delicate iron threads that honeycombed the Paralixlinnes; love of workmanship.

So, Shibura asked then, as one casts food upon the Titanic and through the mystery of the eternal currents there returned the fishes and the deepbeasts; so the Starcrossers gained the Paralixlinnes and Seascape received the Ramships with their cargo of delights.

The mood caught slowly at first and only with the rhythm of repetition did the air clear, the tension submerge. Conflicting images in the game weakened. The players selected new leaves, each bringing to the texture of events some resonance of personal insight.

Shibura caught the uprush of spirit at its peak, chanting joyfully of the completion as the play came to rest:

In pursuit

Of infinity

Lose the way

Thus: serenity.

The Firstpriest imposed the dream-like flicker of gameballs and beads. The muted song was clothed in darkness. Then stillness.

Accept them as the flower does the bee.
The fire burning, the iron kettle singing on the hearth, an oiltree brushing the leadened roof, water dripping and chiming in the night.

The hexagon broke and they left, moving in concert.

Shibura stood with his arms folded behind him and listened to the clicking of the implements. The Firstpriest was engaged with the small Farseer, and attendants moved around the long tubular instrument, making adjustments. Shibura looked out the crack of the great dome and down at the sprawling jumble of the town as it settled into dusk. Even at this distance he could see the flicker of ornamental torches and make out the occasional murmur of crowds.