Evil Out of Onzar

by Mark Ganes

  Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

  Transcriber's Note:

  This etext was produced from Planet Stories September 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

  The sections start with III. This is as per the original magazine.

  _Thane knew this crazy duel was just another of Candor's roadblocks. He had to win._]

  EVIL OUT OF ONZAR

  By MARK GANES

  _The orphan system of Onzar was fuming under its leader's driving, paranoid megalomania. For there was a prize. A vast, grand prize within a parsec of this ambitious domain--the major warp-lines of space crossing the Galaxy between the Allied Worlds and the Darzent Empire. Skyward, hungry legions!_

  * * * * *

  Roger Thane had, of course, heard of these meetings. The stories ofhis acquaintances in Liaison had been graphic enough but they didn'tbegin to do the scene justice. It was, well, jarring.

  Through the one-way glass panel built into one side of the vastmeeting hall of the space station, Thane looked directly across at thedelegation from Onzar, though "delegation" was hardly the word. Alltop gold from the Onzar group was there, and it was easy to tell theirrank--fleet marshals, the technical advisors, the interpreters--by theamount of gold that encrusted their helmets, coruscated from theirshoulder boards, and crept and crawled in heavy filigree around theiruniforms. In that assembly it was easy to pick out Candar. Shorterthan the average Onzarian, with shaven head, his uniform was quiteplain except for small, double-headed platinum shagells on the collar.

  And Candar was doing all the talking. When he had started one hour andfifteen minutes ago his voice had been harsh and low. Now it hadincreased in pitch and volume and he was striding back and forth,showing his scorn for the Allied Systems in every gesture. Thaneglanced at the "absolute" dial of his watch and wondered how long itwould keep up.

  "... we have come to deal with you in good faith and again you seek toexploit us. You would, if you could, take all we produce and givenothing in return. This you shall not do. Onzar is young, but alreadyits power encompasses five suns. Each day we grow stronger. We do notneed your shoddy goods in exchange for our treasure."

  As Candar's voice became louder and more shrill Thane noticed that atechnician to his left kept adjusting the recorder dials. In an houror so the speech would be broadcast through Onzar, three and a halflight years from this meeting place in space. Candar was choosingwords to inflame the already fanatical nationalism of his expandingsystem. "You would take our discoveries, the fruits of our genius andindustry. You would even take our young men into slavery. But thisCandar will prevent. We are a warrior race, and what we need, we take.Our day approaches."

  The last three words were his trademark, his invariable sign-off. Sothat was that. Candar strode from the room followed by the marshals,the advisors, the interpreters. Thane looked over to Garth who hadslumped a bit in his conference chair on the Allied Systems side ofthe room, and was lighting a cigar. Thane had never particularly likedGarth, but, now, he felt a touch of sympathy with him. Garth took twolong puffs on his cigar and then slowly shrugged his shoulders as ifto put a final period to the scene.

  Back in the Allied Systems naval cruiser, Garth was getting out of hisreserve marshal's uniform. He glanced across at Thane, strapping hiscouch belts at the other side of the compartment. "I wanted you to seeCandar in operation. Figured you might as well as long as this showwas scheduled anyway. Could be that it will be of use to you in yournew assignment."

  The navigator's voice came over the intercom, "Prepare for finiteacceleration, twenty seconds absolute."

  * * * * *

  Garth zipped up his civilian coveralls and dropped to the couch,slipping the stub of his cigar into the converter tube. "Thisconference was about like the rest. It makes the sixth, now, that I'vesat through with Candar. You remember he was full of cooperation rightat the start while we were renewing the gold-trade agreement. Afterthat was settled there was nothing more in it for him except thechance to make another speech."

  Thane looked over at Garth. "I noticed that. But why? There wascertainly plenty of gold splashed over everyone in the Onzardelegation, but what is it that makes the stuff so important to them?"

  Garth looked over in surprise. "You don't know? Well, of course youwouldn't. You've been working on specialized stuff on the other sideof the Galaxy. I'll give you some of the background on the way back toLiaison. The sleep-trainer will fill in there."

  Garth stopped. Everything stopped as the acceleration began. Both ofthem were over-braced for the acceleration was light and even. It wasonly 5000 KM to the nearest warp-line.

  As acceleration slacked off for the five-minute coast into the warp,Garth lit another cigar and began. "Onzar was one of those relativelydistant systems which were colonized back in the days when all theyhad was the finite drive. Of course, it took them a generation or soto get out there, at just under the speed of light. And when they gotthere, the best guess is that their ship was too damaged for furtherflight. Otherwise, considering the planet, they wouldn't have stayed."

  Thane flipped through a systems manual to the geographical data forOnzar IV. He readily agreed that they wouldn't have stayed if it hadbeen possible for them to get away. Onzar IV was cold, bitterly cold.Hurricane winds were common. The mountains went up to forty and fiftykilometers, and the land between them was largely barren desert.

  "They couldn't get back into space," Garth continued, "so they stayedin splendid isolation for about 1500 years. Not another ship touchedthe system till the warp-lines were discovered."

  Thane looked up. "I suppose they went through the usual reversion ofthe orphan systems?"

  Garth grunted. "A lot worse than usual. Of course, our version oftheir history is largely guesswork because the Onzarians have neverallowed any research. But it's clear that the immigration crew, ortheir first-generation descendants, put on a very effective little warbetween themselves. By the time they were finished Onzar IV was backin the age of ox-carts, without the ox."

  The intercom sounded again. "Five seconds to warp-line." There was apause, then the familiar shummer and they were on the warp-line drive.As usual, the shummer had put out Garth's cigar. He re-lit it and wenton. "When we began using warp-line travel we hit Onzar in the firstfifty years of exploration. Practically had to. It's only a parsecfrom the confluence of nine lines running between our part of theGalaxy and the Darzent Empire. Right on the main road, right in themiddle of the next war." He stared in silence at Thane for a moment."That's one reason I've called you in on this."

  For most of the rest of the trip to Liaison, Garth continued toexplain the strange orphan system of Onzar. In the religion, as Garthdescribed it, the whole priesthood was female, and gold had magicalvalue. All the men wore gold, the amount strictly in line with theirrank. They despised the women but were in superstitious dread of thembecause only the church could sanctify and give power to their goldsymbols of rank. At first, the men had lived in warring tribes, thewomen in religious groups. They came together each spring and fall forthe ceremonies of gold consecration.

  Still, they did make considerable technical progress, partiallybecause of their interest in mining. By the time the first warp-lineship reached them, the Onzarians had the internal combustion engine,nation-states, mass production, planet-wide wars.

  "Of course," Garth went on, "in the early days of warp-lineexploration we weren't as careful as we are now. The Onzar
ians pickedup enough to put on a real atomic war within fifty years. After thatthey expanded through their own system, and even took over nearbysuns. They certainly had the motive for conquest, too. Gold wasrunning out on their own planet, and they'd go to any lengths to getit."

  Thane glanced at his watch and got back onto his couch. "About timefor deceleration," he said. Garth also began fastening his straps.Thane glanced over, with curiosity. "Sounds like the usual story, withsome interesting variations. Where do I come in?"

  "The thing that makes Onzar uniquely important," Garth said, "is itsposition. Space fleets from Darzent or from the A.S. will have to passwithin a parsec of Onzar, because of the confluence of warp-lines inthat part of the system. Whoever controls Onzar can win the war forthe Galaxy when it comes."

  Garth paused as they went through the shummer and the beginnings ofdeceleration, and then went on. "We were doing fairly well tillCandar's revolt and seizure of power. He is leaning toward Darzent.Apparently he thinks he can keep his own independence even if Darzentwins the decision. He's going along with us just enough to assure hissupply of gold. But you noticed his own lack of gold ornamentation.His eventual aim is undoubtedly to dominate and destroy the religionbecause it's about the only independent force left on Onzar, andCandar is not going to tolerate any independent forces."

  Garth looked steadily at Thane. "The rest of the details, thelanguage, and your own mission will be made clear to you in the sleeptrainer. And it is no exaggeration to say that you will be responsiblefor the future of the Galaxy."

  * * * * *

  Liaison Headquarters had started out several centuries before as asmall organization within the Department of the Outside, directlyunder the control of the newly-formed Allied Systems Council. It hadbegun in a room, and had later moved to its own building. Now itoccupied a planet.

  The four planets in the system all appeared to be barren, lifelessrocks. Appearances were correct for I, III, and IV. II, however, wasnot what it seemed. Like the others, the surface was rocky, barren,utterly lifeless, without atmosphere. But a few kilometers down, ared-haired boy had just won a game of bok at school recess. A researchworker had just finished a report on an improved interrogatory drug.An administrative assistant had just planned a palace revolution on asystem 200 light years away. And Roger Thane, Liaison Agent, was justentering Medico-Synthesis, some eighteen kilometers under the surface.

  The young medic looked up as Thane stepped off the mobiltrack andentered the room. "You're Thane," he said, with curiosity in hisvoice. "The instructions and the sleep-record just came through thePneum. I've heard about you people from Proxima. Just how does itwork, anyway?"

  Thane walked over to the sleep-table and grinned a little wearily."How are you able to see?" he asked. "I don't know that I could tell ablind man satisfactorily. How do the people of the Noxus systemtelepath? I don't know, and they've tried to tell me. All I know isthat mutations occurred sometime while Proxima Centauri was an orphansystem, which enable many of us to make small changes in ourappearance. Hair color, skin pigmentation, fingerprints. Usually takesabout two days. Liaison Research learned how to speed it up withequipment but they never have learned just what they're working with."He smiled apologetically. "I'm afraid that doesn't help you a bit butthere's nothing much more I can say that will give you a clearerpicture. I've tried before."

  Thane was then in his own normal: black hair and eyes, somewhat overtwo meters in height, with the heavily tanned Proxima skin. Beforesliding on the table he took a sheet from the medic and glanced overhis new specifications: yellow eyes, golden hair, golden skin. Slightslant to eyes. Three centimeters height reduction. All routinechanges, and a matter of a few minutes, with the aid of the Liaisonequipment.

  The medic was busy making connections, giving injections and settingdials. Thane looked up at the brightly lighted ceiling. With noperceptible lapse he was still staring at it when the medic begantaking off the connections. But in the zero subjective time, thetwelve minutes of elapsed time, Thane had changed his appearancecompletely. And what he had learned puzzled him at first and thenangered him.

  "Roger Thane," the sleep-record began, "your assignment is theprotection of Dr. Manning Reine...."

  Reine, he learned, was one of the scientists who had been working inobscure laboratories on the Forsberg Project. Forsberg's mathematicshad shown the theoretical possibility of a discreet jump, with no timelapse, from one of the curving lines of warp to the next, instead ofthe present method of travel at "friction speed" along the erraticallycurving lines.

  Garth's voice cut in on the speech record. "Now that we have thedrive, what are we going to do with it? Politically, the AlliedSystems cannot initiate the attack. Yet if we merely wait, Darzentwill eventually learn the details of the drive. As it is, theyoutnumber us, two to one. They have the advantage in almost everyrespect. Their only deterrent has been the fear that we do have thesecond-stage drive.

  "There have already been leaks--enough so that if Manning Reine fallsinto Darzent hands, they would have the drive in operation within afew days. Then immediate attack, and defeat. Your job is to protectReine, or to kill him if there is danger of his loss to Darzent."

  Manning Reine, a native of Onzar, had been educated at the SystemsUniversity at Beirut, Earth. He'd returned to Onzar but had fled atthe time of the Candar revolution. On Earth, he'd married and gone onwith his research work. Now, after twenty-five years, he was the keyfigure in the development of the drive. Undoubtedly his knowledge wasenough to allow Darzent to develop the drive if he should fall intotheir hands. And he was not susceptible to the protective,anti-interrogatory drugs. Reine himself had developed the vitallyimportant gold catalyst principle.

  * * * * *

  Reine's address was just a pair of top-secret geographicalcoordinates, a thousand kilometers from the nearest feeder jet-line.Thane looked down at the endless Norwegian forest, a thousand metersbelow his rented anti-grav scout. He felt depressed. That was alwaysa reaction to be expected, of course, after an accelerated identitychange. But then too, there'd been the scene with Garth after he'dleft Medico-Synthesis.

  Thane had strode past Garth's secretary and into the inner officewithout a word. Garth was behind his desk, his back to the door,studying a galactic wall map. He turned slowly.

  "A bodyguard!" Thane exclaimed. "Is that your idea of the mostresponsible job in the Galaxy? You pulled me off the Elron businessjust when I was set to engineer the beginnings of a representativegovernment there. The whole project will be set back by years. And itwas touch-and-go as it was. And for what?"

  Garth looked at him calmly for a moment, as he bit off the end of afresh cigar. "Thane," he finally said, with deliberation, "theexecutive council of the Department of the Outside just doesn't likeyour methods. You've put through some really brilliant maneuvers butyou've done it alone, taking chances. I've tried to go along with youbut the last report from Elron caused a real blow-up at the council.One of the council members suggested your assignment to this bodyguardjob, as you call it, and they all agreed. I had to go along."

  "Just why, then, is all this Onzar background necessary? Did you thinkit would fool me?"

  "I said I _had_ to go along," Garth answered impatiently, "but that'snot all. I also _wanted_ to go along with the idea. This is much moreimportant than it appears on the surface. We have reason to believethat Reine is still connected with Onzar. We don't have much to go on,but one of your jobs will be to get the details."

  The coordinates on the lat-don dial had almost lined up, though theforest was still completely unbroken below. A few hundred meters tothe right and he had it. Thane let the anti-grav hover for a moment,and then dropped silently downward. Branches of spruce brushed againstthe plastic cabin as the anti-grav settled into the forest. It gentlysettled on a thin layer of powder snow. There was nothing but thesilence of the forest, broken only by the thin sound of the wind inthe branches above.

  H
e stepped out, breathing in the cold, crisp air. He started offthrough the forest using the unfamiliar Terran compass. One hundredtwenty meters, azimuth 273 (difficult to maintain through the trees)and he would come, according to his directions, to a tree a littledifferent from the rest. He continued, with the brittle snow tinklingfaintly under his feet.

  Then a new sound. Once ... again ... then a repeated volley. Stoltzguns. From the tone, hand size, tuned down below lethal potential, butenough to stun and mutilate.

  He was absolutely still for a moment. Then he began running towardsthe sound, trying to minimize the noise of crunching snow under hisfeet.

  He swerved to pass a clump of trees and brush. As he did three thingshappened. A small thrush started into the air off a branch, fluttereda moment, then fell to the snow. A white-clad figure appeared ahead,just at the next bend. And.... Thane wondered just what he was doinghere ... why wasn't he on Proxima? He remembered school there atfun in elementary atomics....

  Then his training took over, forcing his temporarily twisted brain toperform rationally. As he dropped to the brittle snow and aimed hisown Stoltz, he automatically catalogued his confusion as the result ofan off-shot, a near miss. He hit the snow. The white figure was justoff his sights, but close enough. He pressed the impeller. That onedidn't miss, and it had been set on "lethal." He crept forward acrossthe ground. He was sure that his immediate opponent was through, butthere were others. The slithering Stoltz noises ahead increased involume.

  He reached the