Adrienne Martine-Barnes

by The Dragon Rises (v0. 9) (epub)

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Here we are, exchanging pleasantries under the shadow of that . . . thing. How curious a device is man. He will talk of love in the shade of the gallows, and of death on the couch of love. Still, after that, what else is there to talk about? And you almost certainly think I am the vainest man in the cosmos.”

  “Yes, sir,” she replied, giving him a tiny grin.

  He didn’t want her to stop talking to him, Gilhame realized with a start. As, a few nights earlier, he had not wished the dance to end. Why? Because without the close companionship of a female, he felt incomplete. And Alvellaina had made it quite plain that she could not abide either the man he was or the man he had been. Until his outburst the night before, he had thought they were making some progress towards friendship.

  “I am, you know, but only about the things which are worthy of my vanity. Not my looks, of course, or my manners, but my skill in the field. There I take a second place to no one.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Clever girl. You allow me to convict myself of all the sins in the cosmos and then quite properly agree with me. Is that Frikard?”

  “Yes, sir. Shall I get you some more feoan?”

  He discovered that the cup she had given him was empty. He had drunk it without noticing. “Is that what it was? I would have sworn it was bird pee. Yes, another cup, please.” He stuck his tongue out expressively as Frikard came up to them. “Gah! Well, Frikard, what have the geniuses to say about our little friend out there?”

  Commander Frikard, after giving Ganna a curious glance, handed up a thin leaflet of laboratory reports. “It doesn’t look too promising, sir.”

  “It never does.” Gilhame flipped through the pages of technical data as fast as he could, going back once or twice to reread a passage. “Is this right? About the molecular structure?”

  “That’s what our analysts think. We won’t know if it’s right until we start fighting it.”

  “We could pull it apart with our tractor beams, except we don’t dare get that close. So, scratch that one.” He was looking at the last page whereon the technicians had listed some possible means of attack.

  “Commander E-varit is . .

  . . ready to leap down the dreadnought’s throat, no doubt. No, no suicide missions until we have exhausted all other possibilities. At least the thing isn’t completely invulnerable.”

  His viewscreen winked into life. He saw the distinguished face of the head of his technical staff.

  “Well?”

  “We just picked up some very faint life-readings from the dreadnought. There was about a thirty-second burst, then it was gone. We thought we’d better inform you.”

  “Was it from within the dreadnought?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Can you pinpoint a location?”

  “Of course, sir,” the man said in an offended tone of voice.

  “Then do it, Halvar Morshull, and put the display on my screen. Frikard, I think you’d better send a detachment of troopers down to Helvira and bring me back that Niyarkos character.”

  A curious tune began to play in his mind. For a moment he thought it was “The Elves’ Parade,” the dance he had done with the little Mordell girl. Then he realized that it was not a piece of music at all, but more a progression of sounds like the tiny crystal bell that accompanied that dance. The bell-like sound in his mind was painfully shrill. It became more and more clear until it was a maddening tone almost beyond the range of his hearing. He tried to will it to stop, but it went on and on, the pitch climbing higher and higher, beyond his ability to hear it, but still sensed as bright lines of agony in his mind. Then there was a groaning noise, like a house creaking in an earthquake, followed by a sort of splitting rumble. Then he heard nothing but the normal sounds of the bridge.

  Ganna Ottera returned with another mug of the nasty-tasting tea. Gilhame took it from her and stared down at her for a long second, wondering what that series of sounds meant. “Thank you, Ottera. Is there any word from Buschard?”

  “Yes, sir. He is just returned.”

  “Good.” He stared up at the dreadnought as he drank the feoan. Finally he realized that the sounds he had heard were one of those occurrences of clairvoyance which usually occurred with the use of var. He had not recognized it as such, for it had been unaccompanied by any visual images. He always “saw”; he had never “heard” before. He wondered what it meant.

  Then Gilhame remembered a curious war, a war fought with sound, not explosives. He could not recall where it took place, but it had been as devastating as any other conflict. He felt suddenly exhausted, as if he had relived every battle of his many lifetimes in a moment. He knew that the fatigue was from his own search for an answer to the Gamester dreadnought, but that did not lessen his weariness. Then he thought, as he always did, of the thousands of people whose lives depended upon his knowledge and judgment, and he let the exhaustion pass from him, tucking it into a distant corner of his mind and dismissing it from his consciousness. He had the answer to the problem, if only he could discern it.

  An hour had passed since be had sent Frikard off to get Niyarkos. He was surprised at the passage of time. He picked up the technical report from his lap and read it again.

  He finished his rereading and called the lab. Morshull answered, looking as distinguished as always. “Sir, I still don’t have any idea.”

  “I think perhaps I do. That thing is articulated, like a segmented worm.”

  “A picturesque way of putting it, but accurate enough,” Morshull replied.

  “Don’t get snotty with me, Aram. Is there any indication that the thing is armed at those joints?”

  “No. But on the other hand, I don’t know of any weapon we have that could blast through the stuff the dreadnought is made of.”

  “I was not thinking of explosives. Try to restrain your genius impatience, will you? Now, how high-pitched a sound do you think it would take to start breaking up the molecular structure of that beast?”

  “Sound?” Morshull’s eyes got a glassy look. “Sound,” he whispered again. His hands moved down onto his keyboard as he mumbled formulas. “It’s a little out of my line. Cursoni! Come here.”

  Gilhame could hear a few words as Morshull spoke to one of his technicians, but none of it made any sense to him. After a while the head technician turned back to the screen. “We’ll work on it,” he said, and blanked out his screen.

  Buschard came onto the bridge, looking bleary-eyed. He had a stubble of beard on his jaw, and his usually neat uniform was filthy and rumpled. “What the devil happened to you? A pard wouldn’t drag you in.” Gilhame said.

  “My food processor pitched a fit on the way back. The inside of my scout looks like a giant puked in it. I was up to my neck in a mixture of stew and pickles.”

  “Isn’t modern technology wonderful? Go change. Pugh! Much as I love you, wonderful you do not smell.” Buschard looked up at the screen. “Big, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, very. Go away, and don’t come back until you smell less like the aftermath of an eating orgy.”

  “But. . .”

  “But, nothing. I promise, you won’t miss a thing. You’re very anxious to be in at the kill, I know, and you will be. But I don’t think it will be quite what you imagine.” Buschard gave him a curious look, a broad grin and a salute. Then he glanced at the screen again and left. Gilhame marveled again at his ability to inspire such trust and faith in his subordinates. Then he went back to studying Morshull’s technical report.

  Most of another hour passed before Morshull reported back to him. “I think we’ve worked out something that would indeed break up the molecular structure of the dreadnought. Are you just planning to stroll over and pop one into the thing’s mouth?”

  “Hardly. We will need about eighty gadgets ... I don’t suppose you have a name for the thing yet? I’m going to put them on magnetic probes and rain all over the dreadnought’s parade.”

  “Eighty! Wh
at do you think I am, a magician?” Morshull screamed. “It will take me days, and I can’t even test the damned things for fear I’ll shatter the lab. Probably the whole ship would go.”

  “Then you’ll just have to work a little harder. Don’t worry about testing them. We’ll test them on the dreadnought. If they don’t work, well, we’re back at square one. Just think how your reputation will increase when you take out a dreadnought without firing a shot or losing a man.”

  “Do you really believe that thing is just going to noodle

  around out there until I’m ready? And why eighty?”

  “I don’t know if it will go on ignoring us, but maybe. My alternative is to try an assault as soon as possible, and your report has convinced me that would be not only futile but costly. Now, stop having hysterics and go to work.” Morshull cut his comm, and Gilhame rose from his chair and stretched. He was stiff and felt filthy. He could smell the stench of tension-sweat on his body. ‘And I was complaining about Pers,’ he thought. He also realized that he was ravenously hungry.

  Frikard materialized before him. “Sir. They’ll be bringing Niyarkos aboard in about ten minutes. Actually, it’s the whole household.”

  “Clever of you, not to leave anything to chance, Ven. Good. Very, very good. I’ll be in my quarters for a while. Stick our guests in the brig, and let me know if that machine out there starts anything.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Thirty minutes later, ur Fagon entered the security quarters of the Black Dragon, showered, freshly uniformed and with a cheese tart warming his stomach. The guards jumped to attention as he came in, snapping smart salutes. Gilhame looked at the cubicles—upright cylinders of some smoky colored glass stuff. The other Gilhame had spent a time in that environment and remembered the odd dreams which it had created. The security cells sent one into a kind of twilight sleep, leaving one vaguely aware of the habitat and totally uninterested in doing anything about it.

  “Get me Niyarkos.”

  “Yes, sir.” One of the guards opened a cubicle and yanked out the inhabitant. Niyarkos stood there, blinking in a bemused way as awareness returned to him. He looked around the room, gaped at Gilhame and twitched all over. His fine tunic was torn in several places, and one side of his jaw was swollen.

  “I demand to know what the devil you think you are about, Admiral!” he squeaked.

  “You are not in any position to demand anything, Kentinus. In fact, if you come through this with a whole skin, I shall be very surprised.”

  “You can’t go around arresting persons of my station and expect to get away with it.”

  “Shut up! I know all about your little pet and about what happened to the Coalchee fleet. Now I just want to know whether you control the dreadnought.”

  “What dreadnought?”

  “Oh, dear. Are you going to be uncooperative? I did hope I would not have to resort to the various methods of persuasion which I have available to me. Those that are painless are so frightfully destructive to the mind. And I hate to hear a man scream. It seems so undignified. Still, in the service of my Emperor, I will dare anything.” Gilhame grinned, fully aware of how disquieting that expression could be on his face. He turned to one of the guards. “Have you any special recommendations, sergeant? I’m afraid that the extraction of information is a little out of my line.” He said this in a bland, almost lazy way.

  “Yes, sir. I think truth would be the most direct. Of course, the aftereffects are a bit troublesome. Or, we could use ulmai. Except that it usually kills the subject within twelve hours, it’s quite effective. It destroys the red blood cells, you see,” he added in an informative voice. “There are the physical methods too. I can usually make a man tell me anything I need to know inside of twelve hours, but it does leave the subject rather the worse for wear.”

  “Stop! You can’t do this. I claim diplomatic immunity.” “I don’t know if we have time for out-and-out torture,” Gilhame answered reflectively, ignoring Niyarkos’s protest.

  “I don’t think he’d last long, sir. Twelve hours is what I would require for someone like yourself, not a little maggot like him.”

  “Do you have a preference?”

  “Well, I do hate to destroy a mind. You might say it goes against the grain, sir. Besides, one never really knows if one has asked all the necessary questions. I remember once on Latis Station, we had a saboteur to work on, some religious fanatic. I was only a private then, and my sergeant used ulmai. We found out where this fellow had placed all of his bombs, but my sergeant forgot to ask if he was working with anybody. By the time he thought of that, the saboteur was dead. It turned out he was working with someone else, and we lost almost a third of the station. My sergeant went up with the bomb. He was lucky, I guess. If he had lived . . . well, sir, ever since then I’ve been partial to the old-fashioned methods, if you see what I mean.”

  “I do, indeed. Very wise, too, I am certain. Still, time is our enemy in this. I don’t believe I can wait twelve hours. And while I am sure you could break our captive in less time than that, I hesitate to risk it.”

  “Just as you wish, sir. Truth or ulmai.”

  “Have you ever used pentos, sergeant?”

  “Well, sir, I have.” He rubbed his jaw reflectively. “It’s a bit chancy. The subject can tell you what you want to know, but the problem is in sorting out the data. We could just kill him and dead-brain him. It’s tidy, and there’s no doubt that you’ll get all the stuff.”

  “True. Still, it smacks of sorting through a garbage bin.” “Yes, sir. But I don’t have much squeamishness left, not after twenty years at this business.”

  Niyarkos was huddled against a cubicle, white-faced and shaking. His spit glands seemed to be working overtime, for he was dribbling on his torn garment.

  “There now, sir. A fellow what gushes at the mouth like that can usually be persuaded to spill his guts just by pulling out his teeth one at a time. Give me an hour to try it, won’t you?”

  Niyarkos clapped a trembling hand to his mouth and his skin took on the unhealthy greenish tinge which Gilhame remembered from their first encounter on the communicator. A moment later he cast up the contents of his stomach. He sank to his knees, coughing and choking as he fouled the floor. One of the guards hauled the man up abruptly.

  “Caraheen,” gasped Niyarkos. “He . . . controls the machine.”

  “How?”

  “There’s a device . . . oh, sanctesshe prayed and vomited again. “In my library. It’s a box, sort of dull gray. He has to contact it every decan and assure it he’s safe. It won’t listen to anyone but him. I know; I’ve tried. I wanted

  to control it, but I couldn’t. Only Caraheen.”

  “When did he last make contact?”

  “At midday.”

  “Planetary or Imperial time?”

  “Imperial.”

  Gilhame looked at his timekeeper. “And what happens in seven hours if it doesn’t hear from him?”

  “I don’t know. I . . . think it will start looking for enemies.”

  Gilhame folded his arms across his chest and drummed his fingers on his biceps. “Think we’d better have a little chat with Halvar Caraheen, sergeant.”

  Chapter VIII

  Ur Fagon’s “chat” with Niyarkos’s secretary, Caraheen, was brief, unpleasant and informative in a chilling kind of way. Men had been dispatched to recover the dreadnought control box from Niyarkos’s library. Morshull had been told he had less than seven hours to complete as many of his little gadgets as possible. The man had called Gilhame a number of unlikely, rude and downright impossible things in seven different languages before storming off to harass his underlings. Gilhame didn’t blame him a bit.

  He strode down the corridor, aware of his body’s again-unpleasant odor. ‘Next time, I’ll change after the interrogation,’ he thought grimly. Then he entered Farren Vraser’s quarters, off the medical section of the ship. The old Healer was puffing away on his pipe. He grunted and began to ri
se as ur Fagon entered.

  “Sit still. Who do we have in Medical who can manage dominance?” He snapped the question.

  “Dominance? Have you taken leave of your senses? That’s strictly proscribed.” Vraser frowned and shook his large, bald head.

  “I know that. I didn’t come here for a quiet course in Healer’s Ethics. Unless you have a real urge to get munched up by the dreadnought, I suggest you forget about the legalistics of the situation and tell me what I want to know.”

  “You always begin in the middle and try to bully me. Tell me why you have need of a dominant?”

  Gilhame sighed. “The dreadnought. . . can be communicated with by means of a device. We’ll have it here in a while. This device appears to be keyed to the thought patterns of one individual, Illnos Caraheen, the diplomat’s secretary. He is currently down in the brig, recovering from a mild dose of truth. He has to talk to the machine at the next decan. If he doesn’t, I don’t know quite what the thing will do, and right now we are essentially in the position of having nothing more deadly than rocks to throw at the machine. We need time. I need a telepathic dominant who can take over Caraheen’s mind, restore it to its normal state, or as close as can be.”

  “Couldn’t we just go hyper until we are ready to fight the dreadnought?” Vraser asked.

  “We could, if I were certain that it wouldn’t begin to attack the planetary population on the Island Worlds. The problem is, Caraheen doesn’t know what the thing will do if he doesn’t tell it everything is right. He says it’s . . . sort of senile and timorous. That’s subjective, of course. But I don’t want to chance the dreadnought’s deciding to jump on anything in sight. Morshull thinks it has the capability to go hyper within the limits of a planetary system. Now, be a good fellow, and tell me who could do it.”