The Hunter Victorious (17 page)

For a brief moment, Fortran was cowed by the specter of his peers’ contempt as well as the possible—no, be honest, the probable—loss
of the lovely Mutar, but then his mythic backbone stiffened as he further contemplated the probability
of all the years of boredom stretching before him, just lying here forgotten in the darkness of this distant planet.

In a mind-wrenching, stretching moment of courage and personal growth, Fortran dared to doubt, even reject the existence of
the supreme deity known as Yantra. It was a terrifying as well as an exhilarating moment, heart- and breathstopping—that is,
it would have been if he had had a heart or the need to breathe.

And at that very moment, as he began to blur into the transitional phase that took him and his kind from one place to another,
he heard a voice echo inside him—many voices, really, that of the Grand Yerk as well as a number of the Triune of Yerkels.
And there… there were his mother and father! And—was it really possible?—they were congratulating him and praising his courage
and strength of vision! His mother was sobbing softly, although with pride and happiness. The Grand Yerk, however, was muttering
to one of his associates.

Fortran, although he should have been paying attention to the speech the Most Eminent Bezir was beginning, replete with flowery
terms, could not help but focus on what the Grand Yerk was saying: “Why is it the troublemakers who always realize it first?
Fortran! Of all of them, why did it have to be Fortran?”

His associate replied, “Do you think there is some correlation between rebellion and intelligence? It is a most troubling
thought. I am quite certain that we ourselves were never so difficult. Intelligent, certainly; but rebellious, never. Well,
we might as well get on with it. Fortran was the first, but others will follow, it’s always the way. Fortran,” he said with
a sigh. “If only it had been Vexlur.”

“The wedding, Majesty.” Skirnir was doing his best to keep the king’s attention focused on the matter at hand. A
bad choice of words. Skirnir did his best to avoid looking at the king’s hand, that grossly deformed object that the king
kept cradled in a lamb’s-wool sling on his chest. But it was difficult to avoid—the thing was like a magnet that drew his
attention. It was hideous, shiny and swollen like a cartoon caricature of a hand. It was a mélange of colors, black and blue
and yellowish green, with streaks of red lancing up the arm and now advancing well past the elbow.

The healers had done everything within their power, desperate to heal their leader, whom they depended on for continued life.
If they failed to heal him, they would not live long enough to view the final moments of the dying sun.

None of their efforts had been effective. The hideous wound continued to suppurate and worsen rather than improve. In desperation,
they had suggested—no, urged—that the king let them remove the arm. It would save his life and with the marvelous advances
in cybernetic prosthetics… But the king had resolutely dismissed the possibility. What was infinitely worse, he no longer
seemed to care. He seemed deadened by apathy and inertia and merely stared at them without speaking most of the time, no matter
what they said.

Skirnir had asked the volva to join him, hoping that she could add her voice to his, to persuade the king to marry the girl,
sooner rather than later. There might not be a later if the wound did not improve. They needed the wedding to reassure the
people and they needed the sacrifice to whip them into doing their bidding, wiping out all of those who had been deemed as
undesirable, those for whom there was no space on the shuttles.

They were attempting to create a gulf between the chosen and those who were not chosen by the gods. If they could convince
the people that it was the will of the gods, so much the better, for killings justified by feelings of righteousness left
the fewest scars on a populace. And, as it had been proved
many times before, such killings actually drew the survivors together with a sense of attenuated pride, almost like a team
spirit, a patriotism.

Such thinking was far more preferable to the only other alternative, that the Scandis participate in some vile, degenerate
act that would mark them with shame for the rest of their days.

This phenomenon had been thoroughly researched in the years following the great earth war of 1939-1945 when the German nation
had systematically eliminated a population of “undesirables,” millions and millions of them. The Germans had lost the war
in the end and the condemnation of the world was focused on them for decades.

But for the Scandis the greatest lesson that had come out of the earth’s last great war was that people could be manipulated,
could be persuaded to do anything, no matter how horrendous, if they could be convinced that they were in the right. More
specifically, if they could believe that their actions were sanctioned by the gods and that—and this was most important—they
would benefit from their sanctions, while other unfortunates would suffer a well-deserved fate. Under those conditions, there
was no destructive and time-consuming drain of self-guilt and breast-thumping. The people were bound together by the sense
of having accomplished something difficult but worthwhile, and if the job was done right, there would be no one left to argue
otherwise.

The plan could not be implemented without the king’s cooperation. Only he could wed the girl, and due to the feelings of hatred
and guilt that so many Scandis were feeling for the Duroni these days, what more logical a sacrifice?

There were those who argued that they should not have broken Federated laws and colonized an inhabited planet, but those voices
would be among the first to vanish. If the king would only agree to wed! Skirnir began to lose patience; he
could feel his carefully erected facade beginning to crack under the strain.

“Is the boat finished?” Otir Vaeng asked suddenly. It took Skirnir a moment to regroup his thinking. “The boat? Uh, yes, Majesty.
It is all but finished and lies waiting for your direction,” Skirnir said smoothly, inwardly seething at the waste of man-hours.
The very best of artisans had been necessary for the construction of the high-prowed, high-sterned vessel that the king had
demanded be built at the edge of the great dead sea. Complete with mast and sail, round shields painted with the emblems of
prominent Scandi families hung along the sides above the oarlocks and a great pile of kindling was stacked on the varnished
deck. A total waste of time, but Skirnir knew that he dared not defy the king… yet.

The king seemed to settle deeper into his lethargy. Skirnir pressed on. “Majesty, the wedding?” The king opened his eyes,
which were bloodshot, the corneas yellowed. He waved his hand in a gesture of dismissal. “Whenever,” he said with difficulty.
“Whenever you think the time is right, but I have decided that I do not want the girl to be harmed. She is innocent of any
wrongdoing and there has been too much death already. That is my decision.”

“Sir!” Skirnir drew his breath in sharply and glanced at the volva, whose eyes narrowed at the king’s words. “Everything depends
upon the girl. Alive, she means nothing, but her death will unite the people!”

The king gestured again, an indication of his waning interest. “Yes, yes, but heed me, Skirnir. No harm is to come to the
girl.”

“Majesty,” Skirnir said with bowed head and knee, hiding his rage from his king. He shot a sidelong look at the volva, who
had said nothing at all during the entire audience. The volva met his eyes, a chilly glance that extinguished the fire that
burned in his belly like a bucket of icy water. She met
and held his gaze and although no word was spoken, no sign exchanged, he knew with sudden certainty that her goals were the
same as his. Despite the king’s wishes, the girl was as good as dead.

“At the next full moon,” the king said suddenly. “That is in four days’ time. The ceremony will be held on board the ship.”

“But sir, I had thought that the burial mound would be a more appropriate site. Even if the girl is to be spared, we must
slice the throat of a cock and throw it over the lintel to the gods. There are certain rites that must be followed!”

“The ship,” Otir Vaeng said wearily, shutting his eyes and resting his head against the back of his throne. There was a sense
of finality in his words that Skirnir did not dare defy. “The ship, Majesty. Indeed, the ship.”

The sun that shone on Valhalla was nearing the end of its long life. For countless millions of years it had blazed, feeding
upon a seemingly infinite supply of volatile gases. But nothing is truely infinite, and in time the fiery star began to ebb
as the gases that fed the massive inferno diminished.

It did not die quietly, this huge flaming mass, but made its might felt through spectacular solar flares that lashed out at
the cold, dark skies of space as though protesting its fate.

The resulting magnetic disturbances were felt throughout the galaxy, creating havoc with ships and other space installations
when precisely calibrated computer settings and radio frequencies were altered. Fortunately, all but one of the ships affected
discovered the changes and were able to reset their equipment. The one ship whose navigator was not quite so alert blundered
far off course and was never heard from again.

This was, of course, long before the Scandis found the planet and colonized it. In those early years when the sun first
began to wane, most of the damage was inflicted upon the satellite planet that depended on it for light and life.

First to die were the microscopic algae that lived in the oceans and inland waters. Irradiated by massive jolts of ultraviolet
rays, they vanished and were not reborn. Those who fed upon them were the next to die, and so it went in relentless domino
fashion up and down the food chain until all forms of life save those that burrowed deep beneath the surface were dead.

Much of the plant life was affected as well. The more delicate, specialized forms, those that required the narrowest margin
of circumstances to survive, died first as the temperatures rose higher and higher and the ultraviolet rays bombarded the
surface of the planet. Finally, only those plants and trees which were capable of taking the most severe abuse were left alive.

When the Scandis found the planet, the worst of the solar flares were over. The great heat that had seared the planet had
vanished, leaving only barren deserts of shifting sands and bleached lifeless mountains as testament to the violent destruction
that had occurred.

Exhausted both mentally and physically, and having found nowhere else to go, to the Scandis, Valhalla, despite its emptiness
and lack of life, had appeared as a godsend. The Scandis had lost no time in claiming it for their own and set about building
their homes and cities.

It was not until a sudden burst of solar storms erupted on the surface of the sun and long fingers of solar energy arced across
the sky that they began to realize the seriousness of the problem. They were taught this lesson in a manner that they would
not soon forget. Fully half of their people would die from the effects of radiation poisoning received during that brief burst
of energy. Every single animal that was not
fortunate enough to be sheltered underground or similarly protected either contracted some form of radiation sickness or was
rendered sterile.

In one single stroke of random fate, nearly half of the life on the planet was killed and the future of the fledgling colony
was thrown in deepest doubt.

It was impossible to leave the surface of the planet, for the raging solar flares were impossible to predict and the Scandis
had far too few ships to sacrifice even one. The method of travel that they had pioneered for short distances between worlds
was completely dependent on the transmission of electronic waves; the solar disturbances made the contemplation of such travel
only slightly better than suicide. For similar reasons, they could not transmit off planet.

The ship bearing Braldt and his companions had been the last to arrive before the space surrounding the planet became deadly,
and the gods must truly have been smiling on them, for even then flight was considered far too dangerous to attempt.

It was hoped that the flares would diminish, and this was even before the Scandis realized the degree of damage that had been
inflicted on both humans and animals. Their scientists had hoped to report that the flares were an isolated incident, unlikely
to happen again, but their findings proved just the opposite.

Now they knew what they were looking for. There was ample evidence that such flares had been occurring for eons. It also explained
the fact that Valhalla had once supported native life-forms which had mysteriously ceased to exist. It became increasingly
obvious that they could not expect anything but more of the same.

The Scandis had not managed to survive on their own ravaged earth without learning a few tricks. Shortly after colonizing
the planet, they had discovered a natural marvel:
Many of the peaks in a range of mountains that formed a major spine of the world were hollow, perhaps emptied out by rivers
of molten rock during the formation of the planet. The Scandis were not about to waste time questioning the whys and wherefors
of what appeared to be their salvation from the deadly solar flares. What they could not have known was that the worst of
the flares was over and that the dying sun had entered the final phase of its death throes.

As the gases began to diminish, the sun began to actively die, shrinking almost visibly before the eyes of the horrified astronomers.
The Scandis had taken shelter in the largest of the hollow mountains, setting up their city and calling it Aasgard.

There was a certain amount of irony in the name which none could escape, for Aasgard was the final resting place of the gods,
a reward for a job well done. At first it had carried a sense of hope, a feeling that anything was possible if only one strove
hard enough. Now mention of the name left only a taste of bitter irony and few could ignore that, according to the old myths,
Valhalla and Aasgard could only be reached by dying, a state they themselves might easily achieve without even trying.