The City and the Ship

by Anne McCaffrey

  "No," she said firmly, "I do not."

  "I do not owe you an explanation, little one."

  She bit her lip and lowered her eyes, then looked up at him again, abashed, but hopeful.

  Amos sighed.

  "We will begin with Simeon," he said patiently. "What is your objection to him?"

  "He isn't human, cousin. He is a thing that mocks the perfection of man as God created him."

  "And is our uncle, Grigory, an abomination because his heart is made of plastic mesh?"

  She frowned. "No, of course not."

  "Simeon simply requires more mechanical aid than does our uncle. He is still a man, just as Grigory is a man. And he is good man, one of the truest friends that I have ever had. If you will but open your heart to him, he will be your friend too, Soamosa."

  Predictably, she looked both doubtful and queasy.

  "As to my relationship with Channa Hap . . ."

  Her interest sharpened to a sword's point.

  "Frankly, it is none of your business." He watched her blush a deep scarlet. "This I will say, Channa and I do not need a marriage ceremony to sanctify what is already a very real and pure love. Nor is it necessary for me to produce an heir."

  Soamosa actually gasped and clutched at her heart in horror.

  "Let the family divide my estates and wealth among themselves when I am dead. Our world and people will not falter because I am gone. Let them find another to head the state."

  "But your holiness will also be gone. We would be so comforted if you left sons behind to guide us," she said passionately.

  Amos smiled at her. "Sweet cousin, when God touches a man's heart and urges him to speak as a prophet to the people, that man is not chosen because of who his father was. Only think what it would be like if the people turned to you, expecting you to fill my shoes."

  "But they wouldn't!" she said in horror. "I'm only a woman."

  Amos tried to imagine Channa's reaction to that remark. He gave a complex inward shudder. Channa Hap in full fury was enough to make a strong man blanch and cringe; like a thunderstorm on the sands, or a driven ocean crashing on high cliffs.

  "Ah, but they might think that my taking you on this trip had some deeper meaning." She blushed at that and quickly lowered her eyes. "And if I were to offer you such special attentions for the rest of my life, then they would surely think it significant. After all, there have been prophetesses before."

  "But . . . but . . . I have no calling," she protested, both horrified and confused. "I know that I have not."

  "So, why should I create an heir, who might have no calling either, but of whom the people would expect such? Imagine the life my son or daughter could look forward to. Should I be so unfair? Should I arouse such expectations?"

  "No," she said almost sullenly. "But, then why . . . ?"

  "Have I invited you to accompany me? I have invited you because I like you, cousin. Because you are young and I thought that you might enjoy seeing one of the greatest space stations in the universe."

  Because I didn't want to see you living your life in a gray sack, with your mind pinched off like a plant being deliberately stunted.

  He had changed Bethel, the Kolnari war had changed it more, but there were limits to what could be done in a single generation.

  "I thought you might like an adventure."

  He was pleased to see a sudden gleam come into her eyes. It reminded him of the girl who'd put a desert gurrek under his pillow. His heart grew content when she grinned back. Perhaps, after all, those horrible clothes and the mealy-mouthed behavior were the result of an ambitious mother's determined schooling. With time and care she might return to her own true self.

  A sudden twisting wrench made both of them cry out involuntarily. Soamosa fell to her knees, hands over her mouth to hold back the retching. Amos turned his chair and lunged for his console, knowledge driving out the merely physical misery.

  They'd been ripped out of hyperspace.

  Dangerous, exceedingly so. Without drugs, or preparation, susceptible and unlucky passengers had been known to slip into a psychotic state.

  Amos gripped the arms of his chair and closed his eyes waiting for his body to readjust. Soamosa gave up the unequal struggle and ran for the washroom. Amos swallowed hard as the sounds she made urged his body to sympathetic action.

  He activated the com and snapped, "Captain Sung!"

  Before he had finished speaking a voice came booming through the ship:

  "Attention merchanter ship Sunwise. Stand by to be boarded. Resistance is futile and will be punished. Repeat. Prepare to be boarded."

  The skin at the base of Amos's neck clenched as though stabbed with a jagged piece of ice. Kolnari. The accent was different, but the arrogance the same.

  The captain hadn't answered his call. Amos made an impatient sound deep in his throat and headed for the bridge, calling out to Soamosa to remain in the cabin. The two guards standing watch outside the door turned smartly and followed him.

  I have waited too long. I thought . . . The Kolnari never forgot an injury; but they never attacked a foe they thought too strong, either. They had already found the SSS-900-C a mouthful large enough to choke on. Bethel had a space navy of its own, these days—small, but enough to defend the system until a Central Worlds squadron arrived.

  In the merchant ship Sunwise, Belazir t'Marid had found a target easy enough to take, which also meant he felt strong enough to survive the inevitable retaliation. The Kolnari leader had the cunning of Shaithen his master. He might be right. . . .

  * * *

  "Ship is in the five kiloton range," the communications tech was saying. "Warship, from the neutrino signature. Corvette class, but not a standard model."

  Amos nodded to himself, standing at the rear of the horseshoe-shaped command bridge. Panic, but well-controlled panic, he decided. Captain Sung was snapping out orders; hard, almond-shaped green eyes glittering in a stern middle-aged face. Young Guard-Caladin Samuel stood behind him, one hand on the captain's chair, one resting on the console. Occasionally he leaned close and spoke urgently to the distracted Sung.

  On the forward screen, to Amos's vast relief, was a somewhat worse-for-wear ex-courier ship. An ordinary pirate vessel, nothing like the augmented ships the Kolnari favored.

  Mere pirates, he thought. I am relieved that it is merely pirates.

  "Have they indicated what they want, Captain Sung?"

  "They want to board," the Captain snarled. "Beyond that, Benisur, I don't know." He rubbed his chin. "But this is no happy accident on their part. There's no trace of recent drive energies; they had to've been waiting for us."

  Sung glanced at the controls. "With a grapple already engaged and waiting to trip us out of hyperspace. Timing like that . . ." he let the thought trail off.

  Amos's finely chiseled mouth thinned to a grim line. Yes, timing like that meant a traitor, a spy high enough in the Bethelite Security Forces to have access to privileged information. Traitors or Kolnari agents, or both, he decided. Joseph, I should have listened to you.

  Complacency. Letting the wish be father to the thought. I thought you paranoid. Mind you, a Chief of Security was supposed to be paranoid. I should have listened. Of late years he'd even given up the simple precaution of booking passage on several different ships, leaving at different times.

  "That spawn of Shaithen would know where I was," he'd argued with certainty. "It would take more than a simple trick to escape his grasp."

  Joseph would have preferred an escort of destroyers, and a company of Guards. Amos had argued that Central Worlds would, at the least, see that as an insulting lack of trust, and at worst as a provocation—the Bethelites were thought barbaric enough as it was.

  Amos glanced at his escort. Four of them; all were young. And untried, he thought, realizing for the first time that they might well die today. Regret and anger washed through him. He'd chosen youngsters because he wanted to expose as many of the young as he could to Centra
l Worlds culture, because that was their future. Just as these vibrant young men were meant to be Bethel's.

  Joseph, my brother, if I ever see you again I shall allow you to scold me for as long as pleases you about my foolishness; and in future I will bow to your will. He would let Joseph boot his Prophetic arse, for that matter, if he lived past this day.

  "Benisur, I'm afraid they may be after you. There's nothing else on the ship that would be worth their trouble."

  Nothing, unless the pirates were after a cargo of sun-dried tomatoes, dates, goat cheese, leather handicrafts, and preserved meats. Valuable enough on SSS-900-C, with its rich manufactories and well-paid, highly-trained inhabitants. Not the sort of thing which pirates selected for their raids.

  Amos nodded. "My thinking exactly, Captain."

  He paused. Pirates would squeeze Bethel for a ransom it could ill afford.

  "I am reluctant to place your people or your ship in any greater danger, Captain, but I believe we must consider resisting. After all, if I am the object of this exercise, then they cannot risk firing on the ship and possibly killing me. So that is one danger we need not fear. And as they are in a small ship, how many of them could there be? Ten perhaps? Fifteen?"

  The Captain shrugged. "Fifteen tops, more would overtax life support."

  "So we outnumber them as well. Let them come aboard, lure them in and when they are in far enough, strike, and take hostage any survivors. What do you say?" Amos glanced at his young Caladin, courteously including him in their council.

  "I had not even considered surrendering you to them, Benisur." Samuel's brown eyes held an innocent bravery.

  "I'm no soldier, Benisur," Sung said, and pulled on his lower lip. "But I like your plan a whole lot better than just letting these animals grab my ship and take you off it." He nodded decisively: "We'll do it."

  There was a slight quaver in Sung's voice as he issued orders to break out the arms. He glanced at Amos to see if it had been noticed. But Amos was studying the monitor showing the lock through which the pirates would enter.

  An echoing clang resounded through the ship as the pirates extended a caterpillar lock to connect them to the Sunwise.

  Amos looked up from the screen to watch the crewmen depart for their ambush site and murmured a blessing over them, knowing that most of them would neither understand nor thank him for it. But the eyes of the four Bethelites showed gratitude as they ceremoniously touched forehead, lips, and heart.

  Then he watched as the Captain keyed the monitors that covered his crew's progress under the direction of the Bethelite soldiers.

  The camera trained on the main lock showed the hatch recessing. Air hissed as pressures equalized; Bethel's was well below the Earth-derived standard the Central Worlds used.

  A long second's pause. Two men in black space armor swung out from the airlock, crouching, plasma rifles up. After a moment one of them signaled and five more swept out. Three split off and moved carefully towards engineering, the other four, hugging the walls and moving with extreme caution, headed for the bridge.

  Amos's stomach knotted. Their armor was too much like the Kolnari's—though a stripped down version of it—and their movements were too professional, too disciplined, for mere criminals. If the Kolnari were so reduced as to use outsiders . . . mercenaries . . . But no, surely they would despise and avoid such creatures.

  Yet these men behaved like the product of intensive Kolnari training—that was an inhumanly businesslike civilization.

  He opened his mouth to advise the Captain to call off the ambush, when a final invader left the airlock and entered the ship.

  A foot, clad in massive black battle armor, hit the Sunwise's deck with a crash that seemed to move the ship. Slowly—majestic as an eclipse—the Kolnari entered, turned, and marched towards the bridge.

  Amos could not speak. For a moment his throat was paralyzed, he couldn't breathe, he couldn't move. It was unexpected, to be so overwhelmed by horror at seeing one of them again, for he was no coward. But an evil that had almost destroyed his people had returned; the nightmare was marching again—coming to collect him personally.

  "Captain!" Amos managed to choke out. "Call off the ambush, call it off or they'll kill you all!"

  The Captain stared for a moment as though he hadn't understood, then activated the com and spoke, just as Samuel, the Bethelite Caladin, fired on the invaders.

  "Stand down! Stand down! Lay down your weapons and fall back!"

  Some of the crew heard him, reacting with confusion at first, looking around to see if anyone else had heard the order, lowering their rifles, backing off. But Amos's guards engaged the enemy—too intent on battle to listen—certain that if the Benisur Amos wished them to hold their fire his voice would have told them so.

  One crewman stood up, his hands lifted in surrender and died for it, a steaming hole blasted in his chest by a plasma rifle.

  The doubtful broke then and fled, while the others fought and retreated, and died, one by one. Retreat turned to slaughter.

  * * *

  Amos was thrown with bruising force at the feet of Belazir t'Marid and lay face down, unmoving, on a rough carpet made from the scaly hide of a great beast. Behind him, he heard the gentle whir of servos as the battle-armored Kolnari lowered the arm that had flung him here. He heard soft grunts as his companions, Captain Sung and Soamosa were tossed to the floor beside him.

  Soamosa, her blond hair freed from confinement and her gown much torn, clung to Amos's arm, burying her face against him and trembling.

  "Look at me, Benisur," purred a voice silky with satisfaction.

  Amos raised himself onto his elbows and slowly lifted his head. Belazir grinned down at him, white teeth gleaming in a predator's snarl from a face as black as a starless night. He has aged, Amos thought, shocked.

  The hawklike nose was more prominent and the flesh hung on his face like slightly melted tallow. But the golden eyes were as bright and cruel as they had ever been; though now they held the glint of sheer mad glee, where before there had only been a lazy amusement.

  "So good to see you," Belazir continued, almost whispering.

  The control room was centered on his chair, like a massive throne set among control consoles and display screens. The Kolnari lord wore only a white silk loincloth and jeweled belt, besides his ornaments; he lolled like a resting tiger between guards in powered armor, his own suit standing empty and waiting. Behind him a holograph showed a nighted landscape where armored plants grew and moved and fought slow vegetable battles with spikes of organic steel. In the distance a nuclear volcano spat fire that red-lighted the undersides of acid clouds. A giant beast with sapphire scales trumpeted its agony at the sky as six-legged wolves leaped and clung and tore at its adamantine sides. Thick purple blood rilled towards the ground, and the very grass writhed to drink of it.

  Kolnar, Amos knew with a shudder. Antechamber of hell. Belazir had never seen the planet that bred his kind, but it lived in his genes.

  "So good to see you like this," Belazir said. He slowly clenched his hand. "You are in my fist," he explained, as though Amos might not know it. "You and your companions." He grinned at them and indicated the Captain. "And who have we here? Captain Sung, I presume?"

  A vicious kick from a mercenary prompted a response.

  "Yessir," Sung grunted.

  A flurry of kicks caused Sung to roll into a ball, covering his head, drawing his feet up to protect his privates. The kicks concentrated on his kidneys until he sobbed.

  "Beg," the Kolnari said.

  "Please!"

  Belazir raised one finger. The mercenary stepped back, grinning. He had a particolored beard and a brass hoop in one ear.

  "You must tell the Captain the rules, Benisur. We would not want a repeat of this lesson, not at his age."

  "We must address the Divine Seed of Kolnar as 'Great Lord,' " Amos said, his voice flat and distant, his eyes fixed on the space below the Kolnari's feet, "and when the Lord Captai
n Belazir addresses us we must respond with 'Master and God.' "

  "And what are you, Simeon-Amos?" Belazir asked with delicate sarcasm.

  "Scumvermin," Amos ground out. Belazir laughed with delight.

  "Ah, there are times—like this one, Benisur—when a despised enemy can be more welcome than a beautiful bride." He smiled benignly at Amos, then indicated the cowering girl at his side. "Is this your bride?"

  "No! Lord and God," Amos said with such obvious sincerity that Belazir raised an eyebrow.

  "Do not tell me you are still saving your seed for the delectable Channahap?"

  Amos tried to school his features to immobility. He knew the slight shifts in his expression conveyed his outrage to the Kolnari like a shout.

  Belazir smiled a cream-eating smile.

  "A most . . . satisfying woman, truly. I can understand your obsession." He indicated Soamosa again. "Then no doubt this little one is a virgin; your people have an inexplicable admiration for such. Do not fear, girl, I can cure you of it."

  Soamosa's body jerked as though she'd been struck. She muffled a cry with the sleeve of her robe.

  "She is only a child, Master and God," Amos pleaded "Her family will pay a ransom for her safe return."

  Belazir shrugged, "I had eight children by her age, and all of my wives were the same age as I. If I return her to her family in . . . almost one piece, I doubt they will complain. Much." He grinned. "And certainly not to me."

  He flicked a hand at the guards, "Take them away." To Amos: "We will talk again later, scumvermin. I shall look forward to it."

  CHAPTER TWO

  Joseph ben Said paced restlessly through his office. It was on the top, the third story of a building well up on the slopes overlooking New Keriss. He stopped and looked down from the open window; mild salt air caressed his face, smelling of the gardens outside and faintly of the city of low, scattered buildings that stretched down to the waters edge.

  How different, he thought—as always.

  How different from the days before the Kolnari came. Old Keriss had occupied the same site; the airburst hadn't dug much of a crater when the city died in a moment of thermonuclear fire. But the old city had been bigger, more densely built, narrow streets as well as fine avenues. Thickest of all along the old docks, with their shrilling tenements and slums. The New Kerris was cleaner, more modern now that Bethel was in touch with the rest of the galaxy once more. Cleaner, safer, more prosperous . . . although perhaps less happy than the old city had been.