The Carpet Makers

by Andreas Eschbach

  “We had power over their bodies, and we set about to win power over their hearts. Every mortal beneath every sun feared us, but that was no longer sufficient: he should also learn to love us. We sent out priests who sanctified our name and preached our omnipotence in all galaxies, and we succeeded in driving the old images of the gods from the hearts of men and taking their place ourselves.”

  The Emperor was silent. Motionless, Jubad stared at him. The air in the room seemed composed of solid steel.

  With infinite slowness, the monarch turned toward him. “I achieved what I wanted. Absolute power. Eternal life. Everything,” he said. “And now I know it is meaningless.”

  Jubad sensed an unspeakable desolation in these words, and he recognized all at once the stench of the Empire—this breathless fossilization, this hopeless darkness. It was the reek of decay that was without vitality, because time was standing still.

  “Power’s promises only exist as long as there are hindrances keeping one from power. We amassed immeasurable power, but we did not solve the riddle of existence. We are closer to the gods than common humans, but we have never attained fulfillment. The Empire—as vast as it is—is still nothing but a speck of dust in the universe, but it is apparent that more power will not bring us any closer to fulfillment. Should I conquer one more galaxy? What’s the use in that? We have never found other beings comparable to us humans, and, without exception, all humans live under my rule. And so there has been stagnation for millennia; there’s no movement—everything functions, but nothing new happens. As far as I am concerned, time has ceased to exist. It makes no difference whether I have lived for a hundred thousand years or for only one … there is no sense continuing on this path. We have recognized that our search has failed, and we have decided to free humanity from our yoke, to give back to them that which we conquered, and to keep none of it.”

  The words fell like hammer blows into the silence. Jubad could not shake the feeling that he had vanished into smoke.

  “Do you understand what I am trying to say?” the Emperor asked.

  Yes. No. No, he understood nothing. He had stopped believing that he understood anything at all.

  “We,” said the Emperor, who held the memories of his predecessors within himself in some mysterious way, “have decided to die.”

  “To … die?”

  No. He really understood nothing.

  “Someone who has gained this much power can never get rid of it,” the Emperor responded calmly. “So we will die. The problem is that the Empire cannot live on without the Emperor. The people are too dependent on me. If I were just to disappear, they would have no future. I cannot simply give up my power without condemning them all to death. To solve this problem, I founded the rebel movement.”

  “Ah.” Jubad sensed voices inside himself beginning to doubt and seeing this whole thing as an inscrutable subterfuge by the tyrant. But deep at the bottom of his heart, something told him that the Emperor was entirely serious.

  “Constructing a mental yoke is easy, but removing it again from people’s minds is difficult. Human beings will have no future, if they are unable to shake off my control over their minds. So the purpose of the rebel movement was to draw people together and train them in freedom of the spirit.”

  The Emperor closed the wall in front of the projection map of the Empire. “That has been achieved. We are nearing the final phase of my plan, and now it depends on you rebels. You must conquer the Central World, kill me, take over the government, and divide up the Empire into many individual, viable parts. And above all, you must eradicate—root and branch—the belief in me as God-Emperor from the minds of men.”

  Jubad became aware that he had been holding his breath for quite some time, and he inhaled deeply. A superhuman weight seemed to lift from his shoulders, and the atmosphere of tangible darkness around him fled.

  “But how can we possibly do that?” he asked.

  “I will tell you how,” said the Emperor. “I know your plans; they are hopeless. When we finish our discussion, while you are being taken back to your cell, you will discover an opportunity to escape. My Defense Department has arranged a completely believable scenario for you. Don’t be mistaken; it is all intentional. They have set it up so that you will come into possession of secret documents that reveal a weakness in the Central World’s defenses. But these plans are forged; if you were to attack the supposed area of weakness you would blunder into a trap with no escape. Instead, you will feign an attack there, but direct your real attack against Tauta Base. Tauta—don’t forget that name. Tauta is one of the bases from which I operate in disguise. From there, a secret transdimension tunnel leads directly here into the Palace. In this way, you can circumvent all planetary defenses and occupy the Palace from the inside.”

  Jubad’s breathing faltered. No one had ever imagined that such an access could exist.

  “And now about my death,” the Emperor continued calmly. “You will kill me. When you attack, I will wait for you here in this room. You will kill me with a shot through the chest—and be prepared! You’ve already found out that attacking me is not so easy. When we meet again, you must be able to do it!”

  Jubad nodded in bewilderment. “Yes.”

  “There are two essential things,” the monarch stressed. “First you must show my corpse on all media channels in order to prove that I am dead. Show it in some degrading position, maybe you can hang it by its heels. You cannot show any respect—that would be pernicious. Keep in mind: above all, you must undermine faith in the Emperor. You have to demonstrate that, despite my long life, I was just a mortal. And you must prove that it is really my corpse—so don’t disfigure my head. Don’t suppose you have an easy task. Nothing is more difficult to exterminate than religion, no matter how false it may be.”

  Jubad nodded.

  “The second matter concerns the two of us, you and me,” the ageless man continued as he scrutinized the rebel. “It is important that you take this conversation with you as your secret to your grave.”

  “Why?”

  “The people must believe they have taken back their independence themselves; they must be proud of their victory—this pride will help them over the difficult times ahead. They must not find out that it was not their victory at all. Never. They must not find out that they had totally lost their freedom and that it required my intervention to give it back to them. For the sake of the self-esteem of future generations, for the sake of the future of all mankind, you must be silent.”

  Jubad, the rebel, looked into the eyes of the Emperor and saw in them the unfathomable depth of his weariness. He nodded, and it was like taking a solemn oath.

  * * *

  When the rebels took the Palace half a year later, Jubad inconspicuously slipped away from his battle unit. They had taken the Palace Guard by complete surprise. There was gunfire everywhere, but the outcome of the battle was not in doubt. Without being challenged, Jubad reached the outlying sectors of the gigantic palace and finally entered the room where the Emperor awaited him.

  He stood on the same spot where Jubad had last seen him. This time he wore his official parade uniform with the imperial mantle over his shoulders.

  “Jubad,” he said simply when the rebel entered. “Are you prepared this time?”

  “Yes,” Jubad replied.

  “Then let’s make an end of it.”

  Jubad drew his raygun and weighed it reluctantly in his hand. He watched the Emperor, who stood looking calmly at him.

  “Are you sorry you did this?” the rebel asked.

  The Emperor raised his head. “No,” he said. The question appeared to surprise him.

  Jubad said nothing.

  “No,” the Emperor repeated finally. “No. I was born into this world without knowing what life was all about. Only power promised fulfillment in life, and I have pursued it—long enough to recognize that it’s a false promise and that this road leads to nothing. But I tried. Even if we get no answers to our
questions, it is the inalienable right of every living being to search for them—by all means, on all paths, and with all strength. What I did was only what I had a right to do.”

  Jubad shuddered at the cruelty of his words. The Emperor was merciless toward everyone, even toward himself. To the very end, he was not relinquishing the iron grip he had maintained for a hundred thousand years. Even in death and beyond, he would determine the fate of mankind.

  He’s right, Jubad realized with dismay. He cannot rid himself of the power he struggled to achieve.

  The handle of his weapon seemed heavy in his hand.

  “A court would perhaps judge differently.”

  “You must kill me. If I remain alive, you will fail.”

  “Maybe.”

  Jubad had steeled himself for the Emperor’s anger, but to his surprise he saw only disgust and weariness in the monarch’s eyes.

  “You mortals are fortunate,” the Emperor said slowly. “You don’t live long enough to discover that everything is vain and that life has no purpose. Why do you think I have done all this … have gone to all this effort? I could have taken all mankind with me to the grave if I had wanted. But I don’t want to. I want to have nothing more to do with this existence.”

  Shouts and the sound of shots reached the room from outside. The fighting was coming closer.

  “Shoot now!” the Emperor commanded fiercely.

  And Jubad raised his weapon as though by reflex and, without thinking about it, shot the Emperor in the chest.

  Later they celebrated him as the Liberator, the Vanquisher of the Tyrant. He smiled at cameras, struck triumphant poses, and gave wildly acclaimed speeches, but he was always aware that he was only playing at being the victor. He alone knew that he was no victor at all.

  To the end of his life he would wonder whether even this final moment had also been part of the Emperor’s plan.

  Understanding alone cannot withstand time; it changes and fades away. But shame is like a wound that is never exposed and therefore never heals. Yes, he would keep his promise and never break his silence, but not out of a sense of understanding but out of a feeling of shame. He would keep his absolute silence, because of this one moment—when he, the rebel, obeyed the Emperor.

  XIII

  I’ll See You Again!

  THE ATTACK HAD COME without warning. From nowhere alien spaceships had appeared and approached the space station without identifying themselves and without responding to contact attempts. And when the battle robots, the station’s first line of defense, opened fire, the strangers responded with massive return-fire.

  They had driven them off and had even damaged one of their ships severely. But the aliens could be counted on to return. The damage to the station had to be repaired as soon as possible, so that next time, they could confront them, alert and ready for action.

  * * *

  Ludkamon had been assigned to repair duty in Base Sector 39-201, along with a gang of common cargo loaders, and he hated it immediately.

  Base Section 39-201, a flat, hall-like module that served as a fully automated intermediate warehouse for containers, had been struck by a blast and had been out-of-order since then. The damage to the exterior had been repaired, and the sector had been flooded with air again, but was still not in service.

  “Attention, everyone,” droned the leader of the repair squad in a voice used to giving commands. “We’ll divide into groups of two and will mark every part of the facility that’s not in working order. Then we’ll reduce gravity in the zone and offload the inaccessible containers by hand. And quickly, please. The tunnel ship is waiting!”

  The bulkhead flew up, opening the way into the gigantic, dim hall filled with shelves and transport rails, many of which were dented and partially melted. It smelled cold and dusty.

  Dividing into pairs didn’t work out, and Ludkamon headed off alone. He didn’t mind. He couldn’t stand the cargo loaders, not since Iva …

  He didn’t want to think about that. Maybe it was good that he had work to do, something to concentrate on. He took out the marking pen and devoted himself to inspecting the conveyor tracks: he spun the rollers by hand, listened to the sound of the rotation, and stopped them again. Wherever the rollers didn’t rotate or made a suspicious sound on the track, he put a mark on the side.

  And then he discovered the toppled container.

  There were a lot of toppled containers in the hall. But this one had fallen from a conveyor during the shelling. It had struck the shredded side-support of a shelf and the container lid had been slit open, as though by a can opener.

  Ludkamon held his breath. An open container!

  His whole life he had wondered what was in these containers that arrived here daily by the thousands to be transferred to the tunnel ships. Knowing what was in them was forbidden. The containers—about as long and as wide as a man is tall and hip-high—were always locked and sealed. And what they contained was the subject of the most fantastic rumors.

  Ludkamon looked in every direction. Nobody was watching. Just one step, and he would know. One step and he would bring the wrath of the Emperor down on him.

  So what. One step, and Ludkamon bent over the gaping hole in the lid of the container.

  A rancid, unpleasant odor struck him. His hand brushed across something soft, like fur. What he grabbed in his hand and drew out through the hole looked like a thick blanket or a thin carpet. It seemed to have precisely the dimensions of the container. And the container was filled with them.

  Carpets? Odd. Ludkamon stuffed the soft thing back as best he could.

  “You weren’t trying to peek into the container just now, were you?” A booming voice gave him a jolt.

  Ludkamon sprang to his feet. “Uh, no,” he stammered.

  The squad leader stood before him and scrutinized him suspiciously from head to toe. “I bet you were. Ludkamon, your curiosity will cost you your head someday!”

  * * *

  The doctor bent over the gaping wound with an unemotional but still slightly nauseated expression on his face and a gesture betraying clearly that he considered his presence here an annoying, routine matter. The skull had burst, over an area two hands wide, and the brain mass was oozing out from beneath it—gray and lifeless. He drew the lamp that was suspended above his head down closer, so that its light illuminated the fracture without shadows.

  “Well?” the other man asked. His voice echoed in the large, clinically sterile room. “He’s no longer functional.”

  With a sigh, the doctor removed his measuring probe from its bracket and touched the brain, making no particular attempt to be careful. He watched the instruments for a while. Nothing moved.

  “He’s dead. No doubt,” he said finally.

  The other man snorted in annoyance. “Dreadful! And now, of all times!”

  “You guys think the attackers will come back?”

  “Forewarned and better armed. Yes. There’s no way around it; we need replacements in the Upper Sector as soon as possible, before the Portal Station is attacked again.”

  The doctor nodded without emotion. “I’m finished.”

  He began removing the life-support cables and turning off the machines. The soft, subliminal humming that had been audible in the cool room the whole time fell silent.

  * * *

  Ping!

  With a signal that sounded metallic, Space Traffic Control sent the alert that a new blip had appeared on the screen. The man at the console looked up. He immediately found the dot flashing alone on the monitor, and his hand moved nervously toward the alarm switch.

  Endless seconds passed before the proper identification appeared beside the dot and it stopped blinking. I-70113. One of the Imperial Ships. The man let go of the alarm button and switched on the radio.

  “I-70113, Gateway Station here. Boarding time is 108. We’re on heightened alert. Prepare to be escorted by battle robots. You’re assigned to the southwest approach quadrant. From 115 on, you’ll be
on an autoguide-ray; your landing assignment is Bay 2.”

  The voice from the speaker sounded calm and businesslike, as always. “Portal Station, we copy. Approach southwest. Landing Bay 2. Guide-ray beginning at 115. Over and out.”

  “Over and out,” the man confirmed. They had not asked for details. Apparently they knew nothing about the attack by the alien spaceships. Well, now they would find out.

  * * *

  From his seat in the glass cabin Ludkamon had a view of the entire landing bay, the enormous airlock gates, the catwalks and stairs, and the mountainous piles of empty containers. We serve the Emperor. The individual beads of the Guardschain slid soothingly through his fingers. Whose word is law. Who could tell how many times he had recited the Oath of the Portal Guards today to rein in his wildly galloping thoughts? Whose will is our will. Whose anger is terrible. Everything was going more slowly since the alien attack. The repairs were mostly completed, and there were long stretches of downtime when he knew no other way to calm himself. Who forgives not, but punishes. And whose vengeance is eternal.

  Once again the question ran through his mind, why the final bead for the last sentence of the oath was covered with fur, and he thought about the strange fabric he had found in the container. Then he saw Iva, his Iva, flirting with Feuk—with this disgusting, cocky fellow—and the jealousy he had fought so hard to control boiled up inside him.

  Ludkamon examined his reflection in one of the inactive monitor screens. He saw a reedy young man who seemed awkward and clumsy, with an otherwise rather inconspicuous appearance. Reluctantly, he had to admit to himself that he could not quite explain why a girl like Iva wasted any time at all on him. He could more easily understand why she liked Feuk, and these thoughts unleashed a fiery pain in his gut, leaving him feeling ugly and small. Feuk was a cargo loader, big, strong and self-confident, a giant with golden locks and muscles of steel. He, Ludkamon, had risen at an amazingly young age to loading supervisor—a position that would always be beyond Feuk because of its mental prerequisites—and he really did feel that he was destined for even higher things. But he had never noticed that women were impressed by mental ability.