The Navigator of Rhada (17 page)

The Lady Florian, however, was more clever than the Chamberlain. She translated the Galacton’s farewell differently, though even she, gossiping for hours about it with Sebastian, the Polari cyborg, could make no
true
sense of it. For what Torquas, under strong hypnotic suggestion from the superior of the Jersey sanctuary, had said, of course, was: “I go to meet my father’s son.”

The strength of the AbasNav movement has been grossly exaggerated. The anticlericals of the Torquan Age were
always
few in number and vague in doctrine. Their so-called “power” derived exclusively from the ambition of one man, the ruthless and daring General Alain Veg Tran, who mercilessly used Imperial force to . . .

Varus Milenis,
The New Renaissance,
ate Second Stellar Empire period

The starship’s penetration of the atmosphere sent a rolling sonic boom over a million square kilometers of autumn forest and grassland, the virgin territories of Aurora’s southern continent.

A Rim world, Aurora had few population centers. The three main cities had been built, time out of mind, on the seacoasts of the North Temperate Sea. A world of farms and herdsmen, the planet was ruled from Star Field and garrisoned by territorial troops, companies of native Aurorans who had served their time with the Imperial armies and retired to this peaceful planet of fields and woodlands on the boundaries of the Rhadan Palatinate.

Kynan’s planetfall had been deliberately chosen, an ocean and continent away from the occupied lands and a thousand kilometers from the isolated complex of monasteries, chapels, and laboratories of the sanctuary.

In Janessa’s grandfather’s time, the Order had been ceded extraterritorial rights to several thousand square kilometers of land between the Janus River and the Great Inland Sea of the southern continent--the largest body of fresh water on the planet.

Kynan’s holy books noted the planetary longitude and latitude, but since neither he nor any of his three juniors had ever visited the Aurora sanctuary, the exact location of the place was questionable. The holy books, containing thousands of planetary charts copied from the fragmentary records of the First Empire, were not always exact.

Kynan reclined now in the First Pilot’s command station, observing directly through the polarized walls of the bridge. The land three thousand meters below blazed with the colors of the Auroran fall: dark greens, red golds, brilliant yellows. In the crease of an unnamed mountain range, a river shone like molten silver in the afternoon light. The distant horizon blended with a slightly greenish sky that was hazed, cloudless, empty. No sign of human habitation marred the vast stillness below.

Brother Evart, at the power console, was reaching the end of his power sequence litany: chanting the settings to the junior priests on the thrust controls.

“Energy Point Zero Three, Brother Pius.”

Pius, being the youngest of the juniors and only sixteen years old, was excited by the nearness of the planetary surface. Starships did not normally travel this close to the ground unless fully manned by experienced Navigators. It had been found that the planetary effects tended to make control difficult, and starships had crashed to extinction in atmospheric flight. “Energy Point Zero Three, for the glory of the Star,” Pius intoned.

“Let’s get down to one hundred meters off the contours, Evart,” Kynan ordered.

Evart’s expression betrayed his opinion of the order. Contour flying with a starship of a million metric tons took confidence only a fully consecrated First Pilot such as Kynan possessed.

Kynan was young enough to explain his command--a thing an older priest would never have done. “I want to approach the sanctuary at low altitude, Brother Evart. There are apt to be vessels from Gonlan over the enclave. I want to come in low and after dark.”

“Yes, First Pilot. But won’t navigation be difficult?” Kynan gave Evart what he hoped was a cold and commanding look.

“Mea culpa, First Pilot,” the junior said humbly. “Energy Level to Point Zero Zero One, Brother Pius.”

“Zero Zero One, Blessed be the Name,” the youngster replied, adjusting the banked rheostats.

The land below seemed to come closer, become more detailed. Kynan could see the white-barked trees and the gray faces of molded granite cliffs. A late afternoon breeze sent ripples across the reddish mountain meadows. The silvery river showed the riffles and shallows of an Alpine course. In the distance, the water plunged over a granite face to form a waterfall of feathery beauty.

The starship descended to the one-hundred-meter level, and Kynan gave the order for hovering flight. It was late afternoon, planetary time. Aurora’s period of rotation gave a day, at this time of year, of twenty-nine Earth Standard Hours. The Auroran sun slanted across the peaceful wilderness below, casting long shadows into the ravines between the massive hills and mountains. Kynan could see brightly plumed birds soaring on long, tapering wings. These hawks, with wing spans of ten meters or more, were the largest form of life indigenous to Aurora. Until the coming of the First Empire colonists, the great birds had dominated the planet. In fact, Kynan realized with a touch of uncharacteristic humility, they
still
owned most of the Auroran air. The total human population of Aurora was well under ninety million. It was hut one of the many facts one considered when it was said that man had “conquered” the known galaxy.

Kynan went to the plotting boards and began to lay out a course for the Great Inland Sea. It lay more than seven hours away at subsonic speed. Kynan had no intention of racing across even these uninhabited lands preceded by a sonic boom to warn all possible watchers of his coming.

He had almost completed his task when the clangor of an alarm shattered the busy quiet of the bridge.

In ancient times an alarm had been thought to be a ghostly manifestation of the greetings exchanged by two starships. Certain Navigators had contended that the ships were not only sacred objects, but actually living beings, and that they spoke to one another through the medium of the alarm. But Navigator Anselm Styr (before his researches carried him into the pit of heresy) had proved that the starships, miraculous though they might be, were but artifacts of the Golden Age and the alarm but a device intended to prevent collisions at sublight speeds.

An actual alarm, however, was a rare and unsettling occasion, for hidden bells took up a clangor, the ship’s identifiers went into clattering action, and information sequences began to appear on read-outs above the First Pilot’s console. In addition to this, a three-dimensional representation of the danger area with all it contained materialized as a holograph in the space usually occupied by the stellar navigational globes.

The result of the present alarm was a startled reaction of prayer from Evart and Brothers Pius and Clement, together with an indistinct image of five starships in the holograph. The lack of clarity, Kynan knew, was caused by atmospheric interference--normally, starships did not exchange Warnings except in space.

The lighted identification signals marched across the read-out screen: registration numbers, nationality, tonnage, speed, and direction for each of the intercepted vessels. All were Imperial starships, and all were in the process of reentry for a planetfall the ship’s computer placed near the Great Inland Sea.

Instinctively, Kynan raised his eyes to stare at the emptiness of the sky above the transparent curve of the polarized hull. There was nothing to be seen, of course, for the new arrivals were a hundred kilometers and more above. And even as he stood, the sound of the warning bells died, the holograph faded, and the computer fell silent as the Imperial vessels raced on around the vast curve of Aurora.

“Imperials, First Pilot!” Evart exclaimed unnecessarily.

Brother Clement, a more silent and perhaps more thoughtful young man than Evart, put Kynan’s thought into words: “Did
they
detect
us,
First Pilot?”

“Perhaps not. We are very low, and the ground returns might blank out our transmissions.” It was a possibility only. He could not be certain that their presence on Aurora now remained a secret.

Kynan gave Evart the course for the sanctuary. “Stay subsonic and one hundred meters above the terrain. When we reach the Janus River, send Clement to fetch me.”

“As you say, First Pilot. It will be done.”

Kynan rubbed a hand across his eyes. His head still pained him, and though the illogical urge to lift ship and run for Earth was less, it was still present: an unexplained and frightening demand, like an alien presence in his mind. He wished fervently that the wise Gret were with him. A Vulk, with his strange knowledge of men’s minds, might be able to sort this out properly. But Gret was parsecs away, at Melissande, or perhaps on Rhada. There was nothing to be done but to go on, hoping to forestall what seemed sure to come.

But
Imperials!
How did they know what was happening on Aurora? And what did they intend?

“Are you still unwell, First Pilot?” Evart asked worriedly.

“Do not trouble yourself, Evart,” Kynan said, feeling the weight of responsibility for far more than he could have ever foreseen on that day he started for Melissande.

He made the sign of the Star and left the bridge, seeking Baltus the warlock.

He found the warlock in his quarters. “Five Imperial starships passed over us a short time ago. They are on a course for the sanctuary,” he said without preamble.

Baltus pulled his beard and looked thoughtful. “There is something very wrong, I think.”

Kynan shrugged. “We knew we could expect some reaction from the Empire as soon as the Gonlani-Rhad threatened to attack Aurora.”

Baltus raised his eyebrows. “Naturally. But the time element is all wrong, isn’t it? Crespus and LaRoss must still be gathering the warband at home. Or at best, only now loading the starships. How did the Imperials know trouble was brewing here?”

Kynan gnawed his lip and considered. Suspicion was growing.

“Only if someone who was at Star Field when the festival was attacked told them,” Baltus said. “It is the only way.”

“Or if Imperials were themselves involved. Isn’t that what you are thinking?”

The warlock shook his head. “Not exactly, Nav Kynan. I’ve studied the Torquans root and branch. Torquas X might have staged such an incident. Torquas the Poet, never. But there is someone who could have done it, and who would--given the proper intelligence and opportunity.”

“The AbasNavs?”

The warlock nodded. “General Veg Tran. We get precious little news of the Empire out here on the Rim, but it is general knowledge that the AbasNav party has been losing adherents in recent years. The people of the Inner Marches think Tran too extreme--for all that he’s a military hero and popular with the aristocracy. But any sort of Imperial campaign on Aurora would give him the perfect opportunity to pick a serious quarrel with the Order. All he would have needed to know was when the princes of the Gonlani-Rhad would be at Star Field. A commando force could do the rest and provide the perfect
causus belli.
It is traditional for the Navigators of each nation to help defend it in time of war. What better chance to bring about an open break between the Order and the Empire?”

Kynan leaned against the bulkhead and tried to clear his aching head. “Two things bother me, Baltus. First-- wouldn’t even General Veg Tran be taking a tremendous risk
personally
in trying to create a situation between the Empire and the Order? I don’t think the people of the Empire would support an anticlerical war. There’s no reason for it.”

The warlock said sadly, “You would say that because you are a Navigator, Kynan. There are a great many who think that the Order is keeping the old knowledge for itself--for its own aggrandizement.”

“That’s not true!” Kynan declared hotly.

“In a sense, it
is
true. It isn’t black magic, no matter what the ignorant believe. It is a body of scientific truth that could be vastly expanded if it were not for the dead hand of the clergy--”

“No more, Baltus. On peril of your soul,
no more.”
The young priest’s face was flushed with anger.

“Forgive me, Kynan. I go too far,” the warlock said quietly.

Kynan felt a flood of contrition. This man was his bond-father’s friend. He was no follower of Antistar, nor even a priest-baiter. He was simply a questing intelligence hungry for knowledge. And, in truth, much knowledge was withheld by the Order on the theory that unrestrained access to the marvels of science had brought civilization to the Dark Time.

Kynan laid a hand on the warlock’s shoulder. “I have no right to be angry with you, Baltus. And there is truth in what you say. But the Order is holy. I am not the one to question what I have spent my lifetime learning. Of this you may be sure--the Order of Navigators means well--it wishes no man harm.”