“I don’t get the idea,” Court said. “Even I can see how anti-gravity could be turned into a mighty good weapon.”
Irelle’s lips parted as she leaned forward.
“You were a soldier, Court. But we are the children of destruction. It is, Kassel said, a hereditary conditioned reflex. Or something that grew from a seed in our minds, long before our history began, when the world ended—after your time, and long, long before mine. There is a legend of a Tree in a Garden, and the fruit of that tree was war.”
Her face darkened.
Court felt a small, horrible chill crawl down his spine. He sensed now, as never before, that a dreadful strangeness lay hidden behind the loveliness of the rose-pearl city. The ominous drumbeat of the past, like iron seas, boomed far underground.
City of enchantment—it was builded on what bloody dust?
“There is a legend,” Irelle said, her voice a whisper. “God placed man in a garden, and said, ‘Of the fruit of that tree you shall not eat.’ But man disobeyed. And there was war. Then God said, ‘Lest you perish utterly, I will give you forgetfulness.’
“And He reached into the minds of men, and, where He touched—something died.”
CHAPTER IV An Offer Is Made
Realization hit him with shocking impact. I’m in the future, he thought. It was one word, familiar enough—something he had, until now, taken for granted simply because he had not faced it squarely. He knew the answer now. A remnant of the sheltering blue sea had remained. Lyra, the city Valyra, the air-cars, the alien environment, he had accepted, watching the scene from the viewpoint of a spectator.
But now he knew that he wasn’t a spectator. That was the essence of the shock. As long as he remained outside of this fantastic circle of living, he was still safe. It wasn’t quite true. Subconsciously the feeling remained that he could dismiss this new world by waking up.
Irelle’s dimly-lighted face, human and lovely, was near his own. Behind her, the rippling waterfall of the crystal mobile, had faded, into a dull glow. Beyond that, the great sweep of the dome-wall, and the rose-pearl glow of Valyra, where men and women lived, reared families, ate and bathed, shimmered on.
Under his breast-bone was a dry, a painful ache. He knew what it was. He wanted to go home. He wanted to see the cities he had fought to save, and which he had lived too long over to see again. No death could have been completer than this.
But New York was gone. Chicago was gone. Little lakes in Wisconsin, where fish leaped in the sunlight, the white ribbons of highways cleanly revealed in the shafts of headlights, the movement and turmoil of hotel lobbies—all had vanished. There had been an—amputation. Time had cut cleanly. But men still feel pain in amputated legs.
He thought, I was going back. After the war, I was going back to the States. My family was there, my work, my home—things I worked for and fought for. I needn’t have worked. Or fought. It’s canceled.
Instead had come a new world. And he didn’t give a hoot about it, or about its problems.
Something had died. Well, that was that. “So you’ve told me a legend,” Court said harshly. “What’s the truth?”
Irelle settled back, an odd look of relief in her eyes.
“The truth? We don’t know. Our history goes back to the time when we were nomadic tribes, and all mankind was wandering over the face of the earth, without science, struggling just to keep alive.
Before that, there was no history. Men did not think. They were too busy. And before that, the world ended. It was a war, I suppose, but such a war as is inconceivable today. Whole continents were blasted.”
She gestured. On the floor between them a picture came into view—a world-map, spheroid, slowly revolving.
“Do you recognize this, Court?”
But he could trace no familiar contours. The great land-masses of Africa and the Americas, of Eurasia and Australia had vanished. This was a new world.
“We have only the legends now,” she said. “Tales of colossal demons smashing the world with hammers of thunder and fire. In the end, not many men were left alive,”
Even in my day, Court thought, there were hammers of thunder. What war could have ended civilization? The Third World War? or the Fourth or Fifth?
New weapons! Weapons out of hell!
“It was madness,” Irelle said. “It left a few tribes wandering amid ruin that was more than ruin. Nothing survived but life. In that life remained horror and fear. When, after a long time, science began anew, men could not build weapons. They were afraid. Kassel said there was a psychic block in their minds. Men forget what they do not wish to remember. The subconscious is very powerful. So, when people tried to turn their science to weapon-making, their minds would not work in that direction. They could not do it.”
Court nodded. He had seen soldiers, shaken with battle-nerves, totally unable to remember the scenes that had shocked them. It was a protective device created by the mind. In a world almost completely destroyed by unimaginable warfare, it might have become a hereditary partial amnesia. Yes, he could understand more clearly now.
But if there aren’t any weapons, how do these Deccans manage?
* * *
Irelle shook her head gently. “They have weapons,” she said. “They were always a warlike race. They have menaced us for many years. Now they plan to attack. We have our own spies, under Hardony. Listen, Court. We are peaceful people, but sometimes wars are necessary,”
“Yes,” Court said. “I know that.”
“We need weapons to protect ourselves. But we cannot conceive of those weapons. We can build them, Kassel said, but our brains cannot originate the ideas. You mentioned a weapon that could be adapted from anti-gravity. Well, never in a thousand years could we plan such a thing practically. We want your help for that.”
“An idea man,” Court said. “I’m beginning to get it. But I don’t like it.”
Irelle let out her breath sharply. “I know. You don’t realize the necessity, yet. Nevertheless it exists. Please, will you do this? Hold your judgment. Look at our world, and understand it. After a while, I’ll ask you again. There will be no pressure brought to bear on you. All we ask is that you look at the truth with unbiased eyes.”
Court hesitated. “I—I don’t know. I didn’t ask for anything like this.”
She stood up, holding out her hand. Court rose, and the girl led him across the great room to the transparent wall. Below, the city swept down the slope, its winding streets and skyways dissecting the sprawling, glowing masses.
“Valyra is alive,” Irelle said softly. “You’ve been dead, Court. You don’t want to waken, do you?”
It was true. He was thinking longingly of the blue sea that had cradled him for eons.
She half turned. Some indefinable perfume, subtle and sweet as spring, drifted into his nostrils.
“Have you forgotten life?” she said—and lifted her face.
He kissed her, hard and savagely at first, with a fierce resentfulness that refused to admit that this was more than a gesture. Yes, he was dead, and dead flesh does not quicken easily.
But he came back to life with Irelle’s lips on his own. Not all of him, perhaps. Perhaps there was a part of Ethan Court that would never waken, that would always remain in the blue sea of the past.
He drew back at last, shaken. His eyes were hard. “Was that what you wanted?” he asked.
Irelle’s gaze met his steadily.
“I do not give my kisses promiscuously,* she said. “I tried to answer a question for you. Well, is it answered?”
Ethan Court stared at her. For an instant, beneath her softness, her warmth, her radiant beauty, he had detected a hint of steel. Driven to desperation, she could be hard—even ruthless and cruel. But Court was not surprised. She was a queen and queens are usually arrogant. Also, in battle, he had learned to be cruel and ruthless himself.
He looked away. “I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t know.”
“I shall never kiss you aga
in,” she said. “Remember that. After all, I am the Throne. When you decide, I will be told. Meanwhile, you are free to do as you like.”
“Suppose I say no?” he said brutally. “And I think I’ll say no? Suppose I won’t show you how to build weapons? Will you kill me then?”
“If you decide that our position will be desperate.” She glanced out at the rose-pearl city below.
“No, you will not be killed. For then I shall know that Kassel never wakened you from your long sleep. I shall know that you are dead, Court. That you died ages ago, in your old forgotten world.” As Court went out his shoulder brushed the mobile and set it whirling in a blinding cascade of liquid brilliance.
In the days which followed Court tried to adjust himself to this new life. He’d seen fantasy films, in his own area, and he may have expected mile-high machines and sleekly perfected ribbon-roads that carried gleaming robots on their errands. But the truth was somewhat different. It had the difference of reality, which is never perfection.
There were machines, but they were not a mile high, and sometimes they broke down. Sometimes they smelled of burning plastics and haywire lubrication. Court wasn’t a mechanic or a technician. He saw a great many wheels going around, and he knew that gadgets of such complexity had not existed in his own era. Nevertheless, they did not leave him stunned. They were only gadgets, after all.
* * *
The giant Den Barlen sponsored him, and Court grew to like the brusque, intolerant military leader. Barlen had one thought—unquestioning loyalty. But there were other traits, a deep sentimentality which Court found strange. To Barlen, Lyra was something more than a country. It was a living entity. Tears would stand in his eyes as he told some old folk-story of his ancestors. There was glamour in Lyra, a strange storybook atmosphere which at times puzzled Court. Certainly there was much to puzzle him.
It was an agricultural land chiefly, though there were a dozen large cities beside the capital of Valyra. There were factories, and Court inevitably found himself paying attention to such matters as fuel-sources. Atomic power was unknown, rather to his surprise. There were extremely effective liquid and compressed powdered fuels, and something of special interest to Court was the device that powered the anti-gravity.
In the air-cars was a type of specialized generator, but the parachute rods held a storage charge—a battery, in effect, though electricity was not involved. The Lyrans were able to compress heavy power-charges in metal mechanisms, the strength limited only by the bulk of the container.
He found himself looking at Lyra with the eye of a strategist.
Lyra was not fortified, and would not be easy to defend. Offense, in the case of Lyra, would be the best defense. An enemy air-fleet, equipped with even Twentieth Century bombs, could reduce the land to ruin in a short time:
Demolition bombs could wreck its factories and homes. Fire bombs could scourge its farms and fields. It would be a “milk run”—bombs away, with no opposition.
There were no weapons—none at all. Dozens of times Court saw places ideal for anti-aircraft emplacements, for camouflaged landing fields, for rocket-cradles. But the great factories turned out the artifacts of peace, ploughshares instead of swords. Under other circumstances it would have been close to a Utopian system. No, through Lyra rustled whispers of threat and danger, of Deccan spies searching for weaknesses, of enemies moving implacably closer.
There were a few weapons, of course, but they were primitive, swords and staves, and the snake-hilted daggers used by Hardony’s espionage corps, which served both for defence and as a means of identification. In has own time that particular symbol—the Aesculapian serpents twined about a staff —had meant healing, but now its purpose was surgical only. Hardony’s men were well-trained, Court discovered. They covered Lyra in a network, careless of their own lives, and were fanatically loyal to the Throne. But he thought that they were not too fond of Hardony himself.
Barlen did not like the red-haired espionage chief.
“I don’t trust him,” he told Court. “Hardony pretends to believe in nothing. He’s cynical and he’s a cruel brute. Striking in the dark with a dagger is his style.”
Baden grinned savagely through his yellow beard, Yes, Barlen hated Hardony!
CHAPTER V Deccan Enemies
During the days which followed, Court grew to believe Barlen was prejudiced about Hardony. Court began to see a good deal of the spy chief and, although Hardony was cynical, Court found he was refreshingly free from hypocrisy. Often Court had chances to have long talks with the red headed man, for Barlen’s duties frequently called him away. Soon Hardony began to invite Court to go with him on various expeditions—sometimes on business for the Throne.
“You know a city by its dives,” the redhead said one night, as they sat in a dim tavern filled with an almost intolerably heavy perfume.
The room was low-roofed and enormous, artificial white perfumed fogs drifting about in dim veils, and off-beat music humming from somewhere. The drinks were unfamiliar, but they were intoxicating. Hardony watched a foppish, silk-clad youth laughing. He was seated on a nearby dais.
“That man, for example,” Hardony said. “What do you make of him, Court?”
“He’s nervous,” Court theorized. “He hasn’t looked at you once since we came in. He isn’t as drunk as he pretends.”
Hardony nodded. “But he knows who I am. That girl next to him told him. I don’t know him, though. He’s a visitor from some other city, or a Deccan spy. Have you wondered why Barlen and I spend so much time with you?”
“No,” Court said. “I’m being guarded?”
“Right. If you know that, do you know why?”
“The Deccans?”
“They tried to capture you once. They’re not fools. They’ve probably more right to survive than our race has, if you apply the law of survival of the fittest. They learned about you almost as soon as you were bought here, and naturally they want you—either to use your knowledge, or to kill you.”
“They sound bloodthirsty,” Court said.
Hardony smoothed back his red hair. “Necessity. I’d kill you myself, if that was the only way of saving you from falling into Deccan hands. But there’d he no animosity in it—nothing personal. Simply logic.”
Court grinned. “I see your point. However, I’d be apt to resist.”
“If everybody thought alike, there’d be less trouble,” Hardony said, sipping a bluish liquor with streaks of gold curling through it. “This isn’t a unified nation by any means. We’ve got factions. Any large social group has. So it takes a strong hand to rule. Luckily the Throne’s hereditary, and people are automatically loyal to Irelle. That’s ingrained. But too many of them try to interpret their own schemes for living. Many hate me because I know that a strong espionage force is necessary. You can’t mould clay with clay. It takes a knife. I’m the knife.”
“What about Barlen?”
“A dull knife,” Hardony said gently. “If he didn’t hold a rank equal to my own, he’d be a useful tool. As it is, his bothersome military machine comes into conflict with my corps at every opportunity. Fidelity’s necessary—my men don’t love me, but they obey me. And Barlen’s men follow him. His men hate mine, which doesn’t matter so long as a strong hand keeps Lyra unified. If we fell into chaos, the Deccans would have no trouble in taking over.”
“I’ve seen no signs of chaos,” Court said. “You wouldn’t. It’s under the surface. But it’s there.” Hardony grimaced. “Barlen’s a romanticist. He sees what he wants to see. To him, Lyra’s a land of honey and cream, with soft music and pink babies and bright flowers everywhere. I know what’s under that. I think you know, too. Human beings aren’t nice. They’re vermin, with the instincts and rottenness of vermin. Lyrans are no better than any other race. Deccans are vermin too. Do you wonder I’m hated?” He smiled crookedly.
“Yet you’re doing an efficient job,” Court said. “I wonder why?”
“So I won’t have to c
rawl with the rest of the vermin,” Hardony said, finishing his drink. “It’s no fun wriggling in the mud. My legs were built to stand on.”
“And to stand on others, maybe?”
* * *
Hardony gave Court a quick glance. “Who’d run the espionage corps if I didn’t?” the spy chief demanded. “Barlen? He hasn’t the intelligence. He’d blunder ahead, and one day the Deccans would be ready, and Lyra would go down fast. This isn’t a perfect land by any means, but it’s the best one available. I intend to keep it so, if I can.” He looked at Court shrewdly. “You’ve been here several weeks now, and I suspect you beginning to feel impatient.”
“Impatient for what?”
“Bored, then. Being a spectator isn’t sufficient.”
Court turned his goblet idly between his palms. He didn’t say anything.
Hardony shrugged. “Let’s go. I’ve an errand to do tonight. Come along. You’ll find it interesting.”
“All right.” The heavy perfume that filled the tavern was drugging; Court was ready to leave. He followed Hardony, threading his way among the raised platforms toward the door. The music hummed faintly in the dim, cloudy radiance.
Someone cried out sharply. Court glanced back, searching for the source, and stiffened. A dais had been overturned, and a heavy, dark-clad figure was sprinting forward, shouting.
“Hardony!” the man yelled. “Watch out!” He was running toward the platform where the foppish youth had been sitting. The youth was on his feet now, in a swirl of rainbow silks, something blue and glittering in his hand. He was struggling to release himself from the girl who clung to him. She was desperately trying to gain possession of the weapon. A curtain of rosy fog drifted between them, half veiling the pair from Court’s eyes.
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