“Have you fully understood how dangerous it is? A Draga, any Draga, is supreme within his own demesne. Hlott could kill you here. There would be no lawful redress, no matter how small and poor an aristocrat he was.”
“But he is not small and poor,” Donnan pointed out. “He’s the boss of this planet. And there lies my chance.” He shrugged. The bitterness that Ger had noticed and wondered about, ever since the Hrunna survivors returned from Katkinu, whetted his tone. “We’re the ones who’re poor, we humans. Nothing to lose. And that fact can also be turned into an asset.”
Ger toweled himself more or less dry and slipped the plain black robe over his head. “In the Seven Classics of Voyen,” he said anxiously, “one may read, ‘Many desperations do not equal one hope.’ Captain, you know I favor your cause. Not from charity, but on the dim chance that you may indeed bring this wretched war to an end. Only when the interstellar situation has become stable will there be any possibility of restoring—no, not the Eternal Peace; that is gone forever—but the true Vorlakka civilization. You must never believe these swaggering Dragar represent our inherent nature as a species.”
“Lord, no.” Donnan shucked his slicker and helped Ger tie an embroidered honorific sash. “In fact, pal, if the breakdown of your old universal state had not thrown up a warlord class, you’d be a pretty sorry lot. Ready? Let’s go, then. Yonder guard is beginning to give us a fishy look.”
They debarked and were frisked. Ger was searched nominally and with a ritual apology, Donnan like a criminal arrested for malicious hoodblinkery and aggravated conspiculation. He submitted without paying much heed. He was too busy rehearsing what—No, by God! A set speech was exactly the wrong approach. Marshal his facts, sure; but otherwise play by ear. Keeping cool was the main thing. He was about to walk a tightrope over a pit full of razor blades.
A servant ushered them down wet, ringing corridors, up ramps worn smooth by warlike generations, and so at last to a relatively small room. It had a transparent domed roof, the walls were brightly colored and furniture stood about. A solarium, Donnan guessed. The guide bowed low and went out. The door shut behind him, thick and heavy.
HLOTT LUURS was sprawled nude on a couch. The light from above rippled along his mahogany fur. He raised himself to one elbow and regarded them with chill eyes.
No one else was present, but a web-footed, long-fanged animal, tiger size, lay at his feet. A borren, Donnan recognized. It rumbled at him until Hlott clicked his tongue for silence.
Ger Nenna advanced and bent his head. “My captain,” he greeted, “dare this worm express thanks for your graciousness in heeding his prayer, or should he accept it in silence as the winter earth accepts vernal sunshine?”
“If the honorable steersman truly wants to show gratitude,” said Hlott dryly, “he can spare me any future time-wastings as silly as this.”
“I beg leave to assure the President that the Terrestrial captain brings news of great import.”
“Yes, he does.” Hlott’s gaze smoldered on Donnan. Briefly, teeth flashed white in his blunt muzzle. “But I’ve already heard that news, you see. A good destroyer thrown away at Mayast, together with Draga Olak Faarer’s life, my kinsman. Kandemir handed the secret of the new paragrav detector, as the price for sparing the flotsam lives of a few Earthlings. That is the news. And now this creature not only has the insolence to return to Vorlak—he demands we put him in charge of still more operations! Be grateful to Ger Nenna, you. I’d have blasted every last wretch of your gang before now, had he not persuaded me otherwise.” Donnan sketched an obeisance. “My captain,” he said, “you agreed yourself to let us try that raid, and you were told that success wasn’t guaranteed. Trying to shift the whole blame on us would be a sneaking trick.”
“What?” Hlott’s hackles rose. He sat straight. The borren sensed his mood and got up too, tail lashing, throat like thunder.
Donnan didn’t stop to be afraid. He dared not. He kept his words loud and metallic: “Thanks for finally agreeing to hear our side of the fiasco. If you really plan to listen to me. And you’d better. This affair hasn’t weakened us as you think. We’re stronger than before. By ‘we’ I mean the Franklin’s men; but we’ll include Vorlak if you want.” The borren started toward him. Hlott called it back with a curt order. I gauged him right, then, Donnan thought, beneath his own pulsebeat and sweat. He’s not so stuck on himself that he won’t stop to look at facts shoved under his nose. He’s not stupid at all, really; just raised in a stupid milieu.
He won’t kill me simply because he gets peeved. . . . No. He’ll have excellent logical reasons.
The Draga shivered with self-restraint. “Speak, then,” he said in a strangled voice. “Explain how Kandemir’s possessing the new detector strengthens anyone except Tarkamat.”
“THOSE detectors are prototypes, my captain,” said Donnan, moderating his tone. “At best, a few enemy ships may now have handmade copies. It’ll take months to get them into real production. So unless we let the stalemate drag on, we haven’t lost much on that account.
“The Kandemirians also have a glimpse of the theory behind the detectors. But a very partial glimpse. And they’ll need time to digest their knowledge, time to see the implications and develop the possibilities. We—Arnold Goldspring and his helpers—have been thinking about this subject, off and on, for close to three years while we cruised around exploring. We’ve given it really concentrated attention since we returned to this cluster.
“When Goldspring and I arrived back at Vorlak from Katkinu, we found that his associates who’d stayed behind in the Franklin had not been idle. Thanks to Ger Nenna, who arranged access to computers and other high-powered research tools, they’d gone a long ways toward developing half a dozen new applications. It’s a case of genuine scientific breakthrough. Inventions based on Goldspring’s principle are going to come thick and fast for a while. And we’ve got the jump on everybody else.”
“I have been told about theoretical designs and laboratory tests,” Hlott said disgustedly. “How long will it take to produce something that really works?”
“Not long, my captain,” Donnan said. “That, is, if a massive scientific-technological effort can be mounted. If the best Vorlakka and allied minds can work together. And that’s the real technique we Earthlings have got that you don’t. A feudal society like yours, or a nomadic culture like Kandemir, or a coalition of fragments like Monwaing, isn’t set up to innovate on purpose. We can tell you how to organize a development project. In less than a year, we can load you for . . . for borren . . . and break the deadlock.”
“So you say,” Hlott growled. “Your record to date hardly justifies belief.”
“Most honored captain,” Ger begged, “I have inspected the work of these people. My feeble powers were insufficient to grasp their concepts. I could only gape in awe at what was demonstrated. But scholars in the physical sciences, who have studied more deeply, assure me—”
“I don’t give a curse in nonexistence what they assure you, honorable steersman,” Hlott answered. “If it pleases them to tinker with a new idea, let them. Something worthwhile may or may not come from it. But I am responsible for the survival of Vorlak as an independent world! And I am not going to gamble half our resources on as crazy an effort as this, masterminded by a mouthful of planetless lunatics. Go!”
Ger wrung his hands. “Noble master—”
Hlott rose to his feet. “Go,” he shouted “Before I chop you both in pieces!”
The borren snarled and crouched.
“But the noble President of Council does not realize—”
Donnan waved Ger back. “Never mind, pal,” he said. “I know you hate to come right out and say this. But it’s got to be done.”
He planted himself solidly before the Draga and stated: “You must know I’ve got the backing of several Councillors. They liked what we showed them.”
“Yes.” Hlott relaxed enough to snort a laugh. “I have heard. Praalan, Seva, Urlan
t. The weakest and most impressionable members of the entire Draga class. What does that foolishness mean?”
“Exactly this, my captain.” Donnan’s lips bent into a sort of smile He ticked the points off on his fingers. “One: they agree with me that if the stalemate drags on much longer, Kandemir is going to win for sure. The nomad empire has more resources in the long run. Two: once equipped with the new detectors, and the prospect of still fancier gadgets—remember, Kandemir’s vassals include sedentary industrial cultures that do know how to organize weapons development—Tarkamat is going to come out looking for a showdown. So we haven’t got very much time in any case. Three: if we prepare for it, we, the anti-Kandemirian alliance, can force the showdown ourselves, with a pretty fair chance of winning. Four: this is so important that Praalan and Company can’t continue to support a President of the Council too bullheaded to realize the simple facts.”
MUSCLES bunched and knotted along the warlord’s body. Almost, the borren went for Donnan’s throat. Hlott seized its neck and expended enough temper restraining that huge mass to retort, slit-eyed but self-possessed:
“Ah, you have gone behind my back, then, and awakened intrigues against me, eh? That shall certainly be repaid you.”
“I couldn’t help going behind your back,” Donnan snapped. “You kept it turned on me, in spite of my loudest hollering.”
“Praalan, Seva and Urlant! What can they accomplish? Let them try to force an election. Just let them dare!”
“Oh, they won’t by themselves, my lord. I talked ’em out of that. Persuaded them they don’t, none of them, have the following—or the brains and toughness—to boss those roughneck admirals. They wouldn’t last a week. However . . . they do have some resources. In cahoots, their power is not negligible. So if they were to join forces with Yenta Saeter, who is very nearly as strong as you—”
“What!”
“Got the idea? My three chums will support Yenta because I’ve talked them into the idea that it’s more important what weapons Vorlak can get than what master Vorlak has. Yenta doesn’t think too much of me and my schemes, but he’s agreed to organize my project once he gets the Presidency, in return for the help of my three Dragar.”
Hlott cursed and struck. Donnan sidestepped the blow The borren glided forward. Donnan closed with Hlott. He didn’t try to hurt the noble, but he went into a clinch. The unhuman body struggled to break loose. Cable-strong arms threw Donnan from side to side. Teeth sought his shoulder.
“Easy, friend. Easy!” Donnan gasped. As the borren lunged, the man forced Hlot around as a shield. The great jaws nearly closed on the Draga’s leg. The borren roared and drew back.
“Let’s not fight, my captain,” the Terrestrial said. His teeth rattled with being shaken. He bit his tongue and choked on an oath. “If . . . wait, call off your pet, will you? If I meant you any harm, would I. . . have come here . . . and told you?”
Momentarily balked, the borren turned on Ger, who scuttled around a couch. “Farlak!” Hlott yelled. The beast flattened its ears and snarled. Hlott shouted again. It lay down stiff and reluctant.
DONNAN let go, staggered to a couch, sat down and panted. “My . . . my captain . . . is strong as a devil,” he wheezed, rather more noisily than he had to. “I couldn’t . . . have held out another minute.”
A flicker of smugness softened the wrath on the lutrine face.
Hlott said frigidly, “Your presumption deserves a very slow death.”
“Pardon me, my captain,” Donnan said. “You know I’m not up on your customs. Back home, in my country, one person was pretty much equal to another. I can’t remember what’s good manners in a society as different as this.”
He rose again. “I didn’t come to threaten you or any such thing,” he continued, feeling how big a liar he was. “Let’s say I just wanted to warn you. Let you know what the sentiments of your colleagues are. I’d hate to see our side lose a leader as brilliant as yourself. If you’d only reconsider this one question of policy, you could swing back Seva, Urlant and Pralan to your side. And—uh—” he laid a finger alongside his nose and winked—“if this move were made precisely right, the honorable Yenta could be enticed out on a nice breezy limb . . . and suddenly discover he was alone there, and you stood behind him with a bucksaw.”
Hlott poised in silence. Donnan could almost watch the fury drain from him and the calculation rise. Muscle by muscle, the human allowed himself to relax. He’d probably won his case, at the last moment.
Practical politics was another art which had been more highly developed on Earth than it was here.
XIII
THE BATTLE OF BRANDOBAR
Annotated English version
TO the literary historian, this ballad is notable as the first important work of art (as opposed to factual records, scientific treatises or translations from planetary languages) composed in Uru. However, the student of military technics can best explain various passages which, couched in epical terms, convey the general sense but not the details.
The naval engagement in question was fought near the Brando-bar Cluster, an otherwise undistinguished group of stars between Vorlak and Mayast. On the one side was the alliance of Vorlak, Monwaing and several lesser races. Secret demonstrations of new weapons, combined with indignation at the ruin of Earth, had induced a number of hitherto neutral planets to declare war on Kandemir. Opposed to them was the Grand Fleet of the nomads, which included not only their clan units but various auxiliaries recruited from non-Kandemirian subjects of their empire. Their force was numerically much stronger than the attackers.
Three kings rode out on the way
of war
(The stars bum bitterly clear):
Three in league against
Tarkamat,
Master of Kandemir.
And the proudest king,
the Vorlak lord,
(The storm winds clamor their
grief)
Had been made the servant in all
but name
Of a planetless wanderer chief.
And the secondmost king was a
wingless bird
(A bugle: the gods defied!)
Who leagued at last with the
Vorlak lord
When the exiles were allied.
And the foremost king in all but
name
(New centuries scream in birth)
Was the captain of one lonely
ship
That had fled from murdered
Earth.
For the world called Earth was
horribly slain
(The stars burn bitterly clear)
By one unknown; but the corpse’s
guards
Were built on Kandemir.
The Earthlings fled—to seek revenge
(The storm winds clamor their
grief)
For ashen homes and sundered
hopes
First seen in unbelief.
And haughty Vorlak spoke to
them
(A bugle: the gods defied!):
“Kandemir prowls beyond our
gates.
Can ye, then, stay the tide?”
And the Monwaing wisemen
spoke to them
(New centuries scream in birth):
“Can ye arm us well, we will
league with you,
Exiles from shattered Earth.”
And the wanderer captain told
the kings
(The stars burn bitterly clear):
“I have harnessed and broken to
my will
Space and Force and Fear.”
Tarkamat, Master of Kandemir,
(The storm winds clamor their
grief)
Laughed aloud: “I will hurl them
down
Like a gale-blown autumn leaf.”
And he gathered his ships to
meet the three
(A bugle: the gods def
ied!)
As an archer rattles his arrow
sheaf
And shakes his bow in pride.
Forth from their lairs, by
torchlight suns,
(New centuries scream in birth)
The nomad ships came eager to
eat
The wanderers from Earth.
And hard by a cluster of youthful suns
(The stars burn bitterly clear)
Known by the name of Brando-
bar,
They saw the enemy near.
And the three great kings beheld
their foe
(The storm winds clamor their
grief)
With half again the ships they
had,
Like arrows in a sheaf.
“Now hurl your vessels, my
nomad lords,
(A bugle: the gods defied!)
One single shattering time, and
then
Their worlds we shall bestride.”
“Sleep ye or wake ye, wanderer
chief,
(New centuries scream in birth)
That ye stir no hand while they
seek our throats,
You murderers of Earth?”
Militechnicians can see from the phrasing alone, without consulting records, that the allied fleet must have proceeded at a high uniform velocity—free fall—in close formation. This offered the most tempting of targets to the Kandemirians, whose ships had carefully avoided building up much intrinsic speed and thus were more maneuverable. Tarkamat moved to englobe the allies and fire on them from all sides.
“Have done, have done, my
comrades twain.
(The stars burn bitterly clear)
Mine eyes have tallied each
splinter and nail
In yonder burning spear.
“Let them come who slew my
folk.
(The storm winds clamor their
grief)
We wait for them as waits in a
sea
The steel-sharp, hidden reef.”
The reference here is, of course, to the highly developed interferometric paragravity detectors with which the whole allied fleet was equipped, and which presented to the main computer in their flagship a continuous picture of the enemy dispositions. The nomads had some, too, but fewer and of a less efficient model.
The Day After Doomsday Page 12
