A Covenant of Justice

by David Gerrold

  After a moment, Ibaka came running up to her, laughing and giggling. “Play with us?” he asked. Nyota shook her head.

  From a distance, M’bele observed this with a sad expression. His daughter had gained six thousand years of memory. She had lost her innocence and laughter. Once again, he wanted to weep.

  Elsewhere on the disk, the Dragon Kask had met a distant branch of his family. He stood among the other Dragons, once again allowing himself to feel accepted by his own kind.

  The Dragons compared their ornaments and trophies, their medallions and their armor. They admired each other’s war-paint and weapons and helmets. They posed and postured proudly for each other, demonstrating the ferocity of their war-cries. Kask laughed harmoniously with them—until one of his brothers remarked, while sharpening his knife, that he looked forward to the chance of killing Lees. “I’ve heard that several of them have come to the Forum. I can hardly wait to taste their blood.”

  Kask did not share the laughter. It troubled him, and he couldn’t explain why—not even to himself. He remembered Lee-1169’s question. He wondered anew about loyalty and honor. Did it lie in following rules? Or did each person have to invent honor for himself as if no one else had ever invented honor before? He’d never had to consider these questions. It made his head hurt.

  Shortly after that, he wandered away from the other Dragons. Kask decided that he didn’t like their jokes about killing Lees . . . or anyone else. He went off and sat alone for a very long time.

  He thought he wanted the companionship of his brothers again. But no—he didn’t want them. He didn’t even like them anymore. What he wanted remained unattainable. He wanted his simplicity again. He didn’t want to have to think about things like this anymore. He wanted . . . he didn’t know what he wanted.

  Elsewhere on the disk, Gito wandered alone, feeling very much left out of the gatherings and celebrations of all the others. Because of his height—or rather, the extreme lack of it—he often felt as if he belonged to a whole other human species; a species not yet represented here at the Forum. If any other high-gravity dwarves had come to the Gathering, he had not yet met them. He would have given anything to speak with another person from Tharn.

  And then—it happened. He heard a soft gravelly voice behind him. He turned and saw her. And his emotions plummeted. She had a certain crushed-rock quality about her that Gito found attractive, she moved with stolidity and assurance; but she also wore a dark red Regency uniform. Despite himself, Gito drifted closer. Her name-tag identified her as Juda-Linda; she smiled at him toothily, and he couldn’t help himself, he smiled back; but the insignia on her uniform revealed that she served on d’Vashti’s starship. She held the rank of fluction supervisor on The Black Destructor.

  Simultaneously intrigued and repelled, Gito didn’t know whether to approach, to flee, or merely to stand in one place, as if struck dumb by lightning. He shifted his feet uneasily.

  She came to him, glancing at him curiously, and then as she saw the insignia of The Lady MacBeth on his chest, she frowned; but then her frown eased as if Gito’s ship didn’t matter at all to her, and she approached the rest of the way. “Hey, fella—” she said.

  Gito flushed with embarrassment. “Hey, yourself.”

  “Do you have any news from Tharn?” she asked.

  Gito shook his head. “I haven’t seen Tharn in . . . too many years. Yourself?”

  She laughed. “I’ve served on The Black Destructor so long, I can’t remember the last time I walked on a planet.”

  “Do they treat you well?”

  “As well as one could hope for. The Phaestor give orders. We follow them. If everything works the way they want, nobody cares about anything else.”

  “Hm,” said Gito.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “I may have to find a new posting soon. I thought that I might start asking around at the Forum. So many ships, so many opportunities—”

  At that moment, Ibaka and another shaggy dog-boy came running past, yipping and barking in excitement. Seeing Gito, Ibaka stopped to say hello, wagging his tail happily.

  Juda-Linda stiffened rudely. “Get away from us, you little son of a bitch!” She raised her arm as if to strike the boy.

  Ibaka yelped and ran away. His friend followed. Gito felt ashamed. He should have stopped her. He should have said something. Now he would have to apologize to the dog-child. He looked at Juda-Linda again. Somehow, some of her attraction had vanished.

  Elsewhere on the disk, Star-Captain Campbell sat and chatted over an evening meal with Sawyer, Finn, Harry, M’bele, Nyota, Three-Dollar, and several other of the TimeBinders and their attendants who had come to the Gathering. Despite all their individual concerns, they discussed little of importance. For a brief while, at least, they had put aside their troubles in favor of a moment of relaxation. They sat around and swapped bawdy tales and obscene stories. The TimeBinders each had six thousand years of dirty jokes. The evening quickly became uproarious.

  Sawyer’s eyes met Neena Linn-Campbell’s for just the briefest of instants, and then they both looked away quickly, equally embarrassed—

  Suddenly—

  Somewhere, Ibaka yelped. A Dragon growled. The light of day winked out. Darkness swept across the Forum.

  Sawyer leapt to his feet, so did Neena Linn-Campbell. Then all the others. They looked up into the sky, aghast. As their eyes adjusted to the sudden night, they saw an edge of darkness sweeping silently across the stars.

  “What the hell—?”

  And then—an ominous and terrifying red light swept over the entire disk of the Forum. It came from a thousand different sources, spaced across a wall of something gigantic—

  Sawyer recognized it first. “Oh, my God—”

  And then Captain Campbell did too. And Finn. And then all the others.

  Kernel Sleestak d’Vashti’s enormous Armageddon-class warship had moved into position directly above the disk of the Forum. A flying mountain of metal and guns. Even though it remained above the ceiling of air, beyond the limits of the atmosphere of the disk—even at that great distance, it filled the entire sky. It blotted out the stars, the suns, and even the Eye of God.

  Across the disk, every eye—human, bioform, robot, construct, android, alien, Vampire, Dragon, whatever—turned upward. They stared in awe and wonder and horror at the size of the kilometers-long vessel. It drifted silently across the roof of the world, both a challenge and a question. What did d’Vashti intend? Had he done this as a bluff? Or would he actually fire on the delegates to the Gathering?

  “Goddammit,” said Harry softly.

  Finn said it for all of them. “He’s outmaneuvered us. How can we hold a Gathering under the guns of the Regency?”

  War Councils

  They retreated to The Lady MacBeth to escape the fearsome eyes of The Black Destructor.

  The TimeBinders expressed the greatest concern. Seven of them sat in the starship’s salon, anxiously discussing their alternatives. Harry, Ota, Lee, Sawyer, Finn, M’bele, and Captain Campbell sat in on the discussion too.

  One of the TimeBinders, a boyish-looking fellow named Grolder, put it into words. “How can we proceed? Even if the Gathering declares the Regency dissolved, how can we enforce it? If we take a stand here, he has the power to scourge our worlds.”

  Nyota stood up then to reply. “I don’t argue with your logic. But I want you to look at something else for a moment. Look at how we have all reacted to the sight of a single starship in the sky. We knew that d’Vashti had the power. We just hadn’t had our noses rubbed in it. Suddenly, he flies overhead and turns on his red lights, and we all go into a panic. We let our fear and our anger speak for us. We fall into the trap of our own emotions. We have reacted exactly as d’Vashti wanted us to. Now, we have to ask ourselves—do we proceed as d’Vashti wishes, or do we take control of our own destinies and act as we wish?”

  “But, Nyota—d’Vashti can’t allow this Gathering to begin at all. He
needs to break it up before it starts. If he has to create an incident, he will.”

  Nyota nodded in understanding. But she simply looked across at Grolder and asked, “Do you want to go home empty handed? Do you want to go back to your people and say, ‘d’Vashti had a starship and we grew so afraid that we decided not to proceed with the Unification’—do you really want to do that?”

  Grolder shook his head no. “I admit my fear. d’Vashti terrifies me. But . . . let me tell you something else. I had heard the stories of Phaestor atrocities—from you, from William Three-Dollar, from Harry Mertz—but I didn’t believe them because I didn’t want to believe them. Until now. d’Vashti has demonstrated his contempt for this process. He gives us no choice. We must proceed with the Gathering.”

  “I have a thought,” Finn said. “I know that I don’t have the same perspective of any of you, but if I might—” He glanced around expectantly, but no one objected. The TimeBinders looked to him politely. Finn nodded and continued, “I don’t think that d’Vashti acted rashly or foolishly or impetuously. I think he acted with deliberate forethought. I believe that d’Vashti wants the Gathering to proceed. He moved his ship into position not to frighten us into quitting in panic, but because he wants to challenge us to continue on in anger. For some reason—I have no idea what or why—he needs for us to have the Gathering. He did this to strengthen our resolve, not weaken it. And look around—it’s worked.

  “We thought we tricked him into recognizing the authority of this body, what if we miscalculated? What if he’s tricked us into having exactly the kind of Gathering he wants?”

  The TimeBinders scratched their heads thoughtfully as they considered the import of Finn Markham’s suggestion. “But what does he want? What does he gain?”

  “He wants power. He wants Zillabar. He wants the Gathering to provide the mechanism by which he will attain both.”

  Three-Dollar spoke then. “On Thoska-Roole, we knew for many years that the Dragon Lord had no intention of breaking the back of the rebellion while we remained useful to him. We never believed that this idea came entirely from the Dragon Lord. We always suspected that d’Vashti had reasons of his own for wanting the rebellion to grow powerful. Perhaps, he wanted this Gathering all along.”

  “If so,” said Harry Mertz, “then we have to ask ourselves why. We may have a much bigger problem here than we ever expected.”

  In the engine room of The Lady MacBeth, Robin and Gito engaged in a similar conversation while Ota and Shariba-Jen looked on.

  “I don’t care about politics,” said Gito. “Tall people do politics. Short people work. And we have to work twice as hard just to get half the recognition. I just want a fair share. You want to know the truth? I don’t care who wins, I’ll go with the winner. Yeah. Don’t look so surprised. The Chief Fluction engineer of The Black Destructor has asked for a copy of my rating. Maybe she’ll offer me a job.”

  “She doesn’t want your brain, you idiot!” Robin said. “She wants your dick.”

  “Big head, little head. I don’t care. I want to work on a bigger ship. Maybe they’ll serve better food. Maybe they’ll appreciate me more than I see here.”

  “What about your loyalty to Captain Campbell?” Robin asked, shocked at Gito’s audacity.

  “What about her loyalty to us?” Gito rasped back. “Whatever happened to that renegotiation of our contracts?”

  “Do you think you’ll get a better deal from the Vampires?”

  “The Phaestor will pay me on time. I can’t work for a bankrupt corporation—neither can you!”

  Robin stopped, speechless. She started to reply, then stopped herself in frustration. At last, she said, “For the first time in years, I regret that I took a vow of non-violence. You make me wish I had a weapon in my hands, you nasty little pig-fucker.”

  “Wait,” said Gito nastily. “I’ll get you a needle-beam. You can lower yourself to my level.”

  “I have never seen such a display of disloyalty, dishonor, and terminal stupidity in anyone! Stupid me. I expected better from you! I thought that this crew stood together as friends—as a family! I accepted you without question. We all did—even though we knew your history, your family, your personal disgrace. And we thought you stood with us the same way. Now we know the truth. Anyone with enough money can buy your loyalty.”

  Gito took a step back, startled. “Wait a minute—” he flustered. “Captain Campbell said it, and you said it, and Ota said it—everybody said it—that the corporation has gone bust. We’ve all started looking for new postings. Don’t deny it. You’ve asked around. Ota has. So has Jen. So why should I take the brunt of your anger? I have to take care of myself too—”

  “But . . . not with the very people who’ve brought down Captain Campbell. Don’t you understand anything, you cretin?” Robin stormed out of the engine room, followed by Ota and Jen, leaving Gito behind, shaking his head and muttering curses about women, androids, and bioforms who didn’t know their aft orifices from a black hole.

  Robin stamped through the keel of the ship, coming up onto the operations deck of the bridge, where she stopped in surprise. Sawyer and Finn sat over the tactical display huddled in private conference.

  “Who gave you access to the bridge of the vessel?” she demanded.

  “Captain Campbell. We need to confer with EDNA.”

  “About what?” Robin looked at them suspiciously. She still felt angry at Gito, she had no intention of letting anyone else win a confrontation.

  “About ways to fight back.”

  “You?” queried Robin.

  “Sawyer and Finn Markham, experts in mayhem,” Sawyer explained.

  “It says so on our business cards,” Finn added.

  “At your service,” Sawyer bowed.

  “Well . . . ?” Robin said grudgingly.

  “Help us,” Sawyer said. He gestured upward, “Why can’t we do something about that?” He indicated the unseen vessel that still dominated the sky over the Forum.

  “Sure,” said Robin. “If you could get aboard her, you could do any number of things to take her apart. Hell, a virus program to reverse her passive levitators just before transit would turn the damn thing inside out—”

  “Too obvious,” remarked EDNA, The Lady MacBeth’s intelligence engine. She put a display up, showing the Armageddon-class warship. “If I had the responsibility of taking that ship into otherspace, I would run tell-me-three-times checks of all gravitational generators and prisms, every thirty seconds.”

  “But if we could do it—?” Finn asked.

  EDNA caused the image of The Black Destructor to shred itself. “Unfortunately, you’d have to wait until the vessel left the Forum. It won’t help you any in the present situation.”

  “Hm,” said Sawyer. “I wonder if we could get her to self-destruct somehow. EDNA, has an intelligence engine ever gone suicidal?”

  “Sorry. Intelligence engines hardly ever demonstrate unstable behavior.”

  “Hardly ever?” asked Finn.

  “It depends on the ancillary motivations. I would assume the I.E. on The Black Destructor does not have many ancillary features. The Phaestor don’t really like intelligence engines with too much independence.”

  “Hm,” said Sawyer. “Maybe we could give it some.”

  “Not a good idea,” suggested EDNA. “The more independence an engine has, the less likely it will commit suicide.”

  “If we could get an antimatter kernel aboard—or even nearby. Hell, if we could just launch one in its general direction. . . .”

  EDNA caused the display to show the results of such an event. The Black Destructor disappeared in a flash of light—but so did the Forum, The Lady MacBeth, and several hundred other vessels.

  Sawyer sank back in his chair. “All right, I’ve run out of ideas,” he announced.

  Finn looked at him, surprised. “Really?”

  Sawyer said, “Well . . . no. But this frustrates me. We can’t get aboard the ship, we can’t
get near it, and anything we could do to it will hurt us as much as them. We need something elegant.”

  “Sorry,” said Captain Campbell stepping onto the command bridge of her vessel. “But we don’t have any more pfingle eggs.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Finn. “Vampires don’t like pfingle eggs enough—at least not enough to get stupid about them.”

  Neena Linn-Campbell glanced curiously at Sawyer. “May I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “I thought you two didn’t get involved in politics. Why now?”

  Sawyer shrugged. He scratched his ear. He frowned. “Politics?” He shook his head. “Nah. We decided to take this one personally.”

  Neena Linn-Campbell smiled. “Why don’t I believe you?”

  Finn smiled gently and admitted it. “All right, maybe we do care a little. Maybe all this politicking stinks just like all the other politicking in the Cluster. But maybe also, this time it might actually make a difference for the better. If we really do believe in justice, and if we have even half a chance here, we have to try, don’t we?”

  “Besides,” said Sawyer. “We don’t think like fish.”

  “Right,” said Captain Campbell, skeptically. “And maybe you heard that the Dragons don’t care what they eat, fish or foul-smelling. . . .”

  Sawyer grinned. “I guess that might have something to do with it too.” He turned back to the display. “EDNA, by any chance do you have a schematic of the keel of The Black Destructor? I have another idea.”

  “It won’t work—” said EDNA. But she put up the display anyway.

  “What about a warhead?” said Robin.

  The Edge

  Nevertheless, not all of the TimeBinders felt as strongly as Three-Dollar and Nyota. Not all of them reacted as Grolder. Several still expressed concern about the wisdom of continuing with the Gathering in the face of the Regency’s obvious disapproval. These included Fariah of B’rik’yno, Lord K’aenar of Ascuto, and Calvin of Canby.