Imperial Stars 1-The Stars at War

by Jerry Pournelle

  She was silent for a moment. "Yes," she finally said, "but they're so strange."

  "Their society progresses, dear, but still in some ways it is completely static, more so than the Roman Empire, far more so than the British, more so even than the Chinese—which is perhaps why Gurat Singh chose those as his models. The Eater apparently convinced them that the rest of the Universe is off-limits to them. At any rate, they're civilized compared to most cultures, even if they do fight wars—there seems to be no poverty, and consider their emphasis on all the arts, on beauty, on good manners. Lahaisa, they march to a different drum, one which we—mercifully—have not heard for centuries, and now would never listen to."

  "Well, they have been kind and courteous to us, their unwanted guests, but still—" She paused, frowning. "Still, I am uneasy."

  Next morning, ceremoniously, Lord and Lady Erris and the captain and his lady were received aboard the ship, and somewhat against their will they allowed themselves to be shown the wardroom and the control tower. As they shifted into Gilpin's Space, Lady Erris surreptitiously crossed herself, but they rigid-controlled any amazement they may have felt at the swiftness of the ship or the uncanniness of the reality perceived from the control tower's ports. When explanations were offered them, they took pains to display neither curiosity nor interest.

  Their first stop, after a flight over the ocean, over fanged continental mountain ranges that towered in frozen silence over jungles and forests unbelievably enormous, was a great island Lord Erris announced as China, and a huge city named Peking. Here again they made their landing outside a palace—or more properly a complex of palaces behind a frowning wall—and in a flowering courtyard beside a lake on which multi-colored swan-like birds were sailing. Here again, too, stood a pavilion, with an Emperor and an Empress on lacquered thrones, surrounded by dignitaries uniformed and costumed very much as their counterparts had been the day before, except that the clergy were robed in saffron faced with black and wore white scarves, and their heads were shaven. The majority of those present looked definitely Asian, but only vaguely so; on Old Earth, in Saul Gilpin's day, one would have been hard put to classify them more definitely. As for the architecture, Lahaisa's father, Jerlan, who knew more about the subject than any of them, at once decided that it was based on data much more tenuous than that of the new England.

  He thought the thought "aloud," and their answers echoed their agreement.

  Here, again, the Emperor stood and strode toward them. He and his Empress alone were robed, in yellow silks embroidered with great dragons. He and she alone wore jeweled headdresses.

  He strode forward and greeted Molane in English, and again there was the long eye-searching which yesterday had preceded their interview with the King and Queen. After that, everything followed almost exactly the same pattern, with the same attitude toward Old Earth, the same guarded less-then-friendliness, and virtually the same hospitality. Only the food was different. Whether it was indeed Chinese, they did not know.

  An hour, and it was over. They were dismissed, and at their next stop, Vienna on the island named Austro-Italy, they followed a similar routine. Here the palace was rococo, ornate and enormous, surrounded by pools and fountains and endless statuary. Here the Emperor, fiercely moustached, was a Caucasian, as were his Empress and their entourage, most of them slightly darker than Lord Erris' countrymen. And here, once again, the pattern was followed in every detail, the eye-searching, the conversation, the introduction of important personages, beginning with cardinals in red-and saffron robes, and continuing with ministers of state and ranking officers. There was one difference only: only wines and liqueurs were served, doubtless because every visit had been carefully orchestrated.

  Everyone had spoken English, and there had been little or no difference in their accents. Now, as they went again into Gilpin's Space, Molane asked Lord Erris if other languages had indeed survived.

  "Oh, they've been preserved—" Lord Erris smiled, "—by scholars in the universities and to some extent in the churches—Latin and that sort of thing. We are Anglicans; the Holy Roman Empire is Roman Catholic; the Chinese are Buddhists. The old languages add something to them. But all religions are embraced within the teachings of our sant—blessed be his Name! When you meet the Successor, you may understand."

  They hovered for a short time over Rome, built on a site carefully chosen for its seven hills, and Erris pointed out the Vatican. Then they headed halfway round the planet to a somewhat smaller island, far more tropical, which they were told was India.

  They landed at New Delhi, a European city with overtones of a remembered East, echoing Benares, perhaps Amritsar, perhaps the Taj Mahal. Lord Erris guided them to an empty quadrangle in which a domed building stood, all white and gold, but much smaller than they would have expected. No one was there to greet them.

  "The Successor," said Erris, "does not come to visitors. We must go to him."

  They walked a hundred yards to the building's steps. Everything was white marble, beautifully proportioned, owing nothing to any discernible tradition on Old Earth. Two huge doors stood open. They entered, followed a wide corridor. They emerged into a hall. There were no attendants, no servitors, but on a marble dais stood a single golden chair.

  In it, the Successor sat, all white except for his brown face, his bare brown feet: white robe, white turban, white beard, all pure white.

  Arilé caught her breath. He—he's beautiful! she thought.

  And instantly the thought came back to her, Thank you, my child.

  She made no effort to hide astonishment, and caught his unvoiced chuckle.

  Then Lord Erris presented them, and the Successor acknowledged each with an inclination of his head, a smile. His voice, when finally he spoke, was soft and very powerful.

  "I know why you have come," he said, "and my Emperors tell me you are without guile, without intent to change us. They have also told you that our destiny was decreed when the Eater came. So you are being shown our world and what we have accomplished. You will see one of the wars we still fight. You will even be allowed to see The Book that shaped us. Go with my blessing. Perhaps someday in the future our destiny will bring us to you." Again he inclined his head. "Farewell," he said.

  Bowing, they said goodbye. Then, once more aboard Lapis Lazuli, where they could converse mind to mind, Arilé said, I sang him seven bars of mind-music when we left, and he was pleased.

  He's a full telepath, Lahaisa answered. The Emperors are partially telepathic, and probably many others are, too. Perhaps that's how they keep everything so—well, so stable.

  It would help, Molane said. I'm sure the Successor has a goal in mind, one that unites them all. But does even he know what it is?

  I still fear them. Lahaisa looked at her small son. Not personally, no. But I feel something in the offing, something ominous.

  I think that old man was wonderful! said Kolali.

  The balance of the day consisted of brief touchdowns at various islands and cities, glimpses of industries some unbelievably sophisticated, at modes of transportation almost invariably sacrificing speed to a maximum of comfort and of scenery. It is impossible to swallow a whole world in ah afternoon, but they learned that there were other religions besides the major three, that many of the planet's animals had been domesticated but that mankind's pets were still those brought from Earth, that except for the three capitals no city had been allowed to grow to more than one hundred thousand, and that the economic pressures which, on Old Earth, had dictated a sometimes deadly overcrowding in a few artificially maintained centers here simply did not exist.

  Once more, they dined at Erris House, and when they left, "Tomorrow," Lord Erris said, "Captain Harrion and his lady will accompany you, for he is much more competent to show you the wild regions and their dangers than I would be, and in the war zone you'll be much safer in his hands."

  "Don't worry," the captain told them. "Headquarters'll be expecting us, and anyhow you can watch most of
the action from Gilpin's Space—" He sounded disappointed. "—Though of course it'll scarcely be the same."

  "But we'll really see the dragons, won't we?" pleaded Kolali.

  "Yes, really," the captain promised.

  Just before she went to sleep, Lahaisa once more mentioned her nagging apprehension. "But it's not only that," she said. "I'm troubled about Kolali. His mind has not been open to me."

  "Kids get that way," Molane reassured her. "He's just thinking about those dragons he has his heart set on, probably."

  Next morning, the captain and his lady arrived immediately after breakfast, and from there on it was just one quick touchdown after another, this time on the continents. They perched on mountain peaks that made Everest seem a foothill; vast black birds of prey with cruel serrated beaks soared among them, swooping down like bullets on their unknown victims. In the heart of the continent called Africa, they saw hairy rhinoceroids, wandering at the foot of glaciers, fall victim to a veritable army of small gleaming serpents moving as army ants move. They were shown precipices plunging down into impenetrable jungles—and a river far mightier than the Amazon dropping half a mile down one of them. In America, there were more mountains, forests, deserts, enormous rivers running through jungle-marshes where raw hunger lived. And Captain Harrion named every place and every creature, and told them how difficult it was to climb, to penetrate, to kill or capture. His eyes shone as he told it, and—to Lahaisa's astonishment—so did his lady's.

  The continent of Asia was as varied as the other two had been, and quite as perilous; and on each continent they saw settlements, roads, and railroads, fighting the wilderness, signs of husbandry and cultivation and development, but at none of these did they pause.

  "On each continent," explained the captain, "each Empire has its sphere of influence, as you know, and—men being men—when these clash we sometime go to war. It's very exciting, and a very satisfactory way of settling things."

  He pointed down at the War Zone, a great rift valley a hundred miles or so from the Asian coast, stretching perhaps forty miles between rain-forest on the one side and sodden bogs on the other.

  Landing at Headquarters, they were introduced to the Commanding General and his staff, who were coldly polite to them. Suddenly, as they spoke, the general pointed at the sky. Three swept-wing silver aircraft floated down from a single gray-white cloud directly at them.

  Instantly, weapons spoke. Puffs of smoke appeared. And suddenly the lead plane erupted in a gout of flame, lurched, collided with its partner on the left, crippling it. Both lost headway. Both suddenly were falling, while the third turned tail.

  "Good shooting!" cried the general.

  Molane and Lahaisa exchanged glances. "Thank you, general," Molane said, still watching the falling funeral pyre and its crippled mate. "You have been very kind, but we've taken too much of your time, and we need see nothing more here on the ground. The rest we can see from Gilpin's Space."

  The general shook his head in puzzlement; Captain Harrion again looked disappointed, but he escorted them back into the ship, and from Gilpin's Space he explained the disposition of the two armies, where an advantage had been gained or lost, and where they might expect an action to be taking place. Finally, far to the right, he pointed out a regiment of self-propelled vehicles, more armored cars than tanks, advancing flanked by cavalry, lancers most of them, and followed by infantry. Artillery was vigorously in action. An occasional vehicle was staggering out of column or bursting into flame; horses were falling, others, riderless, galloping aimlessly away; men who had been marching suddenly were lying still.

  Abruptly, then, a similar force appeared from a woods directly ahead of the attackers, and at the captain's signal Molane dropped Lapis Lazuli down to fifty feet over their heads just as they clashed.

  Even from Gilpin's Space, they could see the expression on the faces of the soldiers as they killed, were wounded, died.

  Sadly, they exchanged one unspoken thought. "Captain, it is enough," Molane said softly. "Let us go. It's time, I think, for my son to have his dragons."

  The captain's momentary annoyance vanished. "My own regiment," he said, "the Fourth Hussars, the King-Emperor's Own, have a camp right in the best dragon country. They'll be expecting us, with a horse ready for me."

  "Why a horse, captain?" Orano asked.

  "Sir, you don't think I'd miss a chance to kill a dragon while we're here, do you? Otherwise, I'd have to wait for special leave. This is something the boy will really have to see. You don't mind, do you?"

  The best dragon country, it turned out, was several hundred miles further down the Asian coast, in a British enclave, and the dragons were true saurians, with tough skins armored in hard scales. Fully grown, they were from ten to twelve feet long from savage jaw to tip of powerful tail, enormously strong hind legs that enabled them to leap frighteningly when attacking, and much smaller front legs equipped with tearing claws. The only sporting way to kill them, the captain said, was with a lance, on horseback. Carniverous, they could always be relied on to attack. Then it was just a matter of nerve and skill. At the right instant, you thrust your lance up through the roof of the hideous mouth into the brain—and then, just as instantly, whirled aside and away. If you didn't—he laughed—either those front legs would get you, or the tail would, or the beast would fall over on you.

  They landed at the camp, a palisaded ring of wooden bungalows; were introduced to one or two different officers; waited for a corporal to bring up a saddled horse, a great bay with the conformation of a Lippizan and the fiery eye of a medieval charger.

  Harrion asked one of his brother officers to accompany the party in Lapis Lazuli, and for a moment they talked about the most likely place. Then he shed his blouse, rolled up his sleeves, took the long lance the corporal handed him—a good two feet longer than those used by lancers in the 19th Century, with a three foot steel head—and mounted up.

  The officer detailed to guide them, introduced as a Captain Swinney, entered the ship a little apprehensively, then pulled himself together and told Molane that, while the dragons ranged far and wide in their insatiable search for meat, their lairs were almost always in an area a mile or two away.

  "It's eroded into all sorts of little cliffs," he said. "Well give old Harrion a few minutes to get there, then follow up. When we see he's spotted one, you can set down, but be sure not too close. We wouldn't want to spook it."

  Fifteen minutes later, they spotted Harrion in the rough country he had just entered. He had slowed to a walk, and was reconnoitering—a Gilpin-ghost of a horseman, Molane thought, seeking a ghostly dragon.

  Suddenly, they saw him rein in, point with his lance. A dragon had just emerged from a cliff-cave. It stood there for a moment, eyeing its approaching meal. Then it moved forward, all business.

  Molane set the ship down about a hundred yards away, shifted into normal space. The dragon, as though he knew ships were inedible, paid them no heed. First he strode, then hopped, then ran directly at the captain. His low-ridged head was nearly two feet long, and most of it was open mouth and teeth. His color was a yellowish green.

  Captain and horse stood stock-still, motionless. The dragon closed the distance rapidly. They saw him tensing for the final leap—

  The lance was pointed forward, but scarcely raised.

  The dragon leaped. The horse, perfectly trained, sat back on his hocks, braced his front legs, the lance point flashing upward—and an instant later, horse and man had whirled aside, the captain still clinging to the embedded lance, the saurian writhing, thrashing, twisting, flat on the ground. The lance point pulled free, and horse and man were turning off—

  The captain's lady screamed. "God, Swinney!" she cried out. "Look!"

  From behind a hummock scarcely feet away, a second dragon had appeared, one just as large and just as hungry as the first.

  The horse heard it first, whirled without command. The captain held his seat, lifted his bloody lance. In seconds, it w
as over. Neither man nor horse lost his nerve. The lance point found the second dragon's brain, and they whirled away, the tail missing them by inches.

  "Lord!" exclaimed Swinney. "Two! Lizveth," he told Harrion's wife, "that's damned well a record. I can't remember anyone ever getting two like that before!

  "You have a man really to be proud of." He turned to Molane. "It'll take those brutes a while to die," he said. "We might as well get back and send some people out to measure them before their relatives come out and eat them up."

  And Harrion's wife stood there, her fear forgotten, proud indeed.

  Within minutes after his return, Captain Harrion was again immaculate, obviously well pleased and basking in his lady's admiration.

  "Well," he declared, "now all we have to do is get you back to Hampton Court so you can see The Book and bid His Majesty goodbye. This has been a splendid day for me! You've really brought me luck, and I thank you for it."