Into the Slave Nebula (13 page)

Having been caught out once and made to look fools, the guards would be wary of a second such trick—so Shembo had argued. They would disregard suspicious noises in case they proved to be bait for a further trap.

It looked as though he was perfectly correct. Horn was close enough to hear what went on as the guards dragged the crewman to the port authority building, and later as he was sent back in Shembo’s personal care to the ship, the captain slanging him unmercifully to deceive his listeners. After that, things quieted down. They would wait, Shembo had predicted, until after dawn to start unloading the cargo.

When all was still, he crept warily to the gate, found the man there snoozing, and stole past him more silently than a shadow. A hundred yards beyond, he broke into a run, and the first flush of red on the eastern sky found him hammering at the door of Braithwin’s hall, infinitely thankful not to have lost his way and been isolated on the streets when enough folk were about for his blue skin to become conspicuous.

Unlike Jan Talibrand, Braithwin did not feel the need to surround himself with retainers and guards. It took a good five minutes’ battering with both fists to provoke the appearance of a sleepy-eyed porter, who on seeing—as he assumed—an android knocking, snarled an insult and made to close again.

“Take me to Hereditary Councillor Braithwin!” ordered Horn. “Bring him from bed if he’s still asleep!”

“Fool!” the porter countered. “Today is a session of the Hereditary Council, and he was up late last night planning the business it’s to deal with!”

“So much the better! Go tell him I have a message from Lars Talibrand, a message from the dead. And he will listen.”

Invoking the name of one who, since his death, was publicly known to have been a citizen of the galaxy secured the porter’s grudging consent. It was almost comical to see the change of expression on his face when he returned.

“Come inside!” he said, swallowing hard. “Councillor Braithwin will indeed receive you, and prays you to wait in the great hall until he comes!”

And in the hall, puffy with sleep and still belting his undress robe around him, Braithwin shouted with amazement to see Horn, whom he confessed to have believed long dead. He stood there, and listened, and lastly gave a grim nod.

“Today the Hereditary Council meets,” he said. “We have come from all over Creew n’ Dith to plan the coming year. But first we shall sit in judgment!”

T
HERE WERE
twenty of the hereditary councillors, all men: two very old, two whose youth suggested they must lately have assumed posts formerly held by aged predecessors, the rest of Braithwin’s age give or take a few years. A table had been set up for them in the great hall, with pens and paper and a neat sheaf of printed reports before each chair. An hour and a half after dawn they began to assemble. Those who came from close at hand arrived yawning and stretching, some having traveled by groundcar through the night; those who had come from further away had slept last night as guests of Braithwin, and greeted the new day fresh and rested.

He saluted each as they joined him in the hall and went to warm themselves at one of the open fires or selected breakfast from trays held by attentive girls. A barrel of the sour Creewndithian beer stood waiting to be tapped later.

Of them all, Jan Talibrand arrived last, when Braithwin had already taken his place at the head of the table. The showy recent-model Earth-built groundcar hummed to a halt outside, and the carefully dressed, impeccably barbered, fragrantly scented occupant made his entry with a flourish. Only dark rings below his eyes betrayed the fact that he had spent the past weeks in mortal terror of exposure.

He took his place at the table, acknowledged greetings from his colleagues, and turned expectantly towards Braithwin. Their eyes met for an instant; then Braithwin looked down at the papers before him.

“This day are we the hereditary councillors of this
planet met together that we shall hear how goes it with our people, their business and their livings, how justice rules, how prosperity increases, how there is peace abroad on Creew ’n Dith, and where business fails, life passes, justice is found wanting, prosperity wanes or peace gives place to war, to set speedily about righting the same. I am Braithwin of Braithwin; I am here and undertake faithfully to discharge the tasks of a member of this council.”

He touched the man on his left, and the sequence of declarations went in turn around the table according to ancient custom. His eyes followed the words, but seemed to linger longest on one face in particular.

“I am Talibrand of Talibrand; I am here and undertake faithfully to discharge the tasks of a member of this council.”

Was there a certain insolence in that tone? Braithwin dragged his gaze away.

He shuffled the papers before him, feeling his heart pound as he lifted the first of them, the one which none of the other councillors had been given. He licked his lips.

“I hereby declare this council open and do impeach one of our number namely Jan Talibrand of the house of Talibrand and maintain that he sits among us not by right but by arrogant presumption for that he has crimes unanswered for—”

The rest began to understand at that point what was being said, and were turning to stare at him in astonishment. Talibrand himself had not moved a muscle, but he had gone completely white.

Up to now Braithwin had been almost droning his words, for the opening of the council was a standard ritual. Now he adopted a fiercer tone and gave the words their individual stress.

“In that: First, he has conspired with others being or not being citizens of this planet to steal away and sell into slavery divers human beings, particularly children, and to profit thereby, the said action being contrary to law and natural justice.

“Second, he conspired with others being or not being citizens of this planet to contrive the death by violence of his brother Lars Talibrand of the house of Talibrand, a citizen of the galaxy.

“Third, he of his personal responsibility did steal away and sell into slavery one Derry Horn, a citizen of the planet Earth.”

Braithwin had to lick his lips again as he returned the paper to the pile.

“Jan Talibrand, what answer give you to these charges?”

The eyes of all the councillors turned to fix on Talibrand, but he paid them no heed. He was slowly rising to his feet, staring at the door to Braithwin’s sanctum. The rest of the company followed his gaze, and there saw emerging …

An android. A blue-skinned man with a full black beard, dark piercing eyes, who lifted his right arm and pointed at Talibrand like a witch-smeller passing sentence of death!

Talibrand’s nerve broke in that instant; he uttered a sound like a sob and fled headlong from the hall.

“Stop him!” Braithwin cried, but he was too late. Before anyone could reach the door in pursuit, the waiting groundcar had hummed swiftly away.

“Perhaps it’s as well,” Braithwin rumbled, calming the other members of the council. “I would not have any man on my beloved planet held guilty on no better judgment than that of his own blind terror! Sit you down again, my friends, and hear out what I have to say before you act. Likely he will make for his estate, and we’ll
follow him there later if you agree that the charges you have heard require an answer. Now here!”—he gestured at Horn, waiting beside his presidential chair.

“Here is an android, or so you will have believed. But for all the blueness of his skin, this is a man—that Derry Horn of whom you’ve doubtless heard.”

A rustle of amazement passed through the company, and the councillors resumed their seats.

“He speaks only a snatch of Creewndithian, but we speak, I believe, at least a little Anglic among us. I will ask him to tell you his reasons for maintaining that there has
never
been a genuine android on Creew ’n Dith, but only such disguised human victims as himself. If that is your wish …?”

The oldest member of the council, who had been too stiff to stir his aged bones in the general rush after Talibrand, coughed and moved that the testimony should be heard. At a gesture from Braithwin, Horn—who had been able to follow what was going on since so much of it spoke for itself—sawed, planed, nailed together the coffin which would bury Jan Talibrand.

In full formal array the Hereditary Council of Creew ’n Dith arrived before the gates of the Talibrand estate to demand an answer to the charges made against its owner, and found the way barred. Sensing Horn’s impatience, Braithwin had warned him beforehand that if this proved to be the case they would merely set guards around the boundary and close the spaceport, leaving any thought of a formal trial until after they had disposed of regular business; as he had rightly pointed out, the welfare of a whole planetary population must take precedence over a single criminal, no matter how heinous his acts might have been, and the council had many demands on its time.

And that was what would probably have happened,
but for the sudden advent of a gunshot, fired, perhaps, by some nervous and over-loyal retainer. Doubtless it had been aimed at Horn, whose blue skin marked him out as a conspicuous target among the councillors and their attendants, but it missed by so narrow a margin that it scorched the skin of his cheek, and found the withered chest of the oldest member of the council, who had remained behind in his groundcar.

That settled the matter. The wanton slaughter of a member of the hereditary council was an insult to the entire planet of Creew ’n Dith, and no one could rest easy until the affront was avenged. As though realizing he was doomed, Talibrand unleashed full-scale fire on the party, and with spent shot tapping at the roofs of their cars they retired to assemble their retainers and lay formal siege to the Talibrand estate.

They moved in at nightfall, breaking the boundary fence at two or three places and sending a detachment up through the spaceport to provide a distraction for the defences. Braithwin politely but firmly advised Horn to stay in the background.

“For one thing,” the councillor pointed out, “even though it’s dark your blue skin will make you a prime target—and your evidence is our chief weapon against Talibrand, so I don’t dare lose you. For another, this has turned into a private affair. What mainly counts right now is not just that Talibrand has engaged in an evil trade, or even that he’s contrived the murder of the brother we so much admired. It’s simply that he’s brought shame on the hereditary council of Creew ’n Dith, and it’s for us to wipe out that shame!”

Nodding his comprehension, Horn dutifully drew aside.

In the wood which fringed the estate, twigs broke, and their tiny reports were followed by others, louder, and sometimes by a scream. Across open fields dark
shadows moved, and here and there knives flashed and grunting struggles ended in bloody gurgling sounds. But the approach was slow; the Talibrand estate had been laid out in days when sieges like these were not uncommon, and it was well to be able to defend the land against a greedy intruder. That was the advantage the defenders enjoyed. Set against it was the fact that many of the attackers had been guests of the Talibrands, particularly in the old days when Barg was head of the house, and they knew all the weak spots in the perimeter.

By the time the night had ebbed away, the defenders had been forced to close in on the hall. But having accomplished that much, having cleansed the outlying grounds of all but a handful of Talibrand’s retainers who might snipe at and harass his own men, Braithwin sighed and ordered general retrenchment.

“I know that hall, and it’s the next thing to a fortress,” he mused for the benefit of any of his companions who might choose to listen. “It won’t fall except to bombs or starvation. And since we’d rather have Talibrand alive … Hell! Horn, what are you doing here? I told you to keep out of this!”

Emerging from the cover of the bush he had used to screen his approach, Horn shrugged.

“It sounded quieter, so I decided to come and see what was happening. I told someone on Newholme I was going to take Talibrand apart with my bare hands, but since I can’t hold myself to the promise I thought at least I deserved a sight of the finish.”

“Finish!” Braithwin snorted. “You’ll have to wait a long time for that!” He gestured towards the long low rambling hall, dimly outlined against the greying sky of dawn. “That’s one of the oldest Creewndithian manor houses, you know! When that was built, people took it for granted they might have to sweat out a seven-month winter on what supplies they’d managed to store! I
could just bring it crashing about Talibrand’s ears, but I’d hate to do that, frankly. I’d risk killing retainers of his whose only crime is that they adhered to the Creewndithian faith, and stayed loyal.
I
know the Talibrand clan! There’s not one in fifty of them Jan Talibrand would dare enlist in his filthy game!”

“Well, if some of his retainers would rather not be involved, couldn’t you—?”

“Buy them off, turn them into traitors?” Braithwin scowled like a thundercloud. “I said it and I mean it: Creewndithians are loyal! And I wouldn’t have it any other way!”

Feeling as though he had unwittingly insulted the older man, Horn turned away and stared through the morning twilight towards the lowering bulk of the Talibrand hall. Occasionally a shot spurted from the embrasure of a window, marking the huge dark mass with a speck of brightness, but otherwise there was no sign of life up there.

And yet, at one end of the rambling structure, surely one of the granaries or storehouses or whatever they were was growing larger …?

“Braithwin!” he cried. “You were wrong! There’s smoke rising—someone’s set the place on fire!”

In the same moment, the first tongues of flame smeared upward across the smoke.

“Who the …?” Braithwin planted his feet four-square on Talibrand ground and slapped the hilt of his sword with his palm. “Never mind, never mind! Whoever it was has done us a service. They won’t survive long in there without burning or suffocating! To me Braithwin—hey, hey, to me, to me!”

He departed at a run, leaving Horn to stare thoughtfully as the flames mounted ever higher above the house.

Whoever was responsible, the fire was doing its work. Soon sparks were belching from windows on the lower
floors as the rising morning wind carried it along interconnecting passages designed to maintain the house’s integrity under siege. The shots from snipers’ guns had formerly cracked forth at all points of the building; within ten minutes of the outbreak they were confined to the end furthest from the conflagration.

How long could the occupants endure this? Horn clenched his fingers so hard the nails bit deep into his palms. The wind was turning the whole structure into a horizontal chimney now, with smoke leaking from half a hundred places far from the original blaze. The roof of the section where the flames had first appeared caved in suddenly, and the underbelly of the smoke-pall was lit with ruddy flashes. Making the most of the distraction, Braithwin was marshaling his forces for an advance on the house.

The first chip of the sun showed above the eastern skyline, and a moment later the great main doors were thrown open. A smoke-grimed woman in a ragged gown, coughing and choking, ran out waving a streamer of white cloth on the end of a pole, and behind her emerged a straggling line of girls and young children, not a few of them howling with terror. The attackers parted ranks to let them seek safety in the fields and woods.

Shivering a little—the house of Talibrand had been a beacon-light throughout the history of Creew ’n Dith, and to execute justice on its current overlord was a task little to his liking—Braithwin heard the cries and thought: A
funeral dirge fit for a fratricide!

The spot at which he had lately encountered Horn was among the best vantage points to survey the house from; having disposed his forces to meet all eventualities, he returned to it, and was puzzled not to find Horn still nearby. Where had the fool gone now? Did he not realize he was the person on whom all the evidence against Talibrand—

“Stand to! Stand to!”

The sergeants shouts ran down the line of men like the wave made in a field of standing corn by the passage of a gust of wind. All else forgotten, Braithwin realized that following the departure of the women and children Talibrand had not ordered the doors of his great hall to be closed again, and that meant he must be intending a sally, to sell his life dearly. And here they came!

Within seconds the sally became a melee as the besiegers broke from cover and met the charge of the defenders head on. The range was too close for most of the available guns; this was bladework, and it was hard to tell which swords were red with blood, which with the glare of the fire. Only the screams of the dying indexed the progress of the fight, and screams were neutral, after all.…