Beneath Strange Stars: A Collection of Tales

by Ralph E. Vaughan

  Dax felt a restlessness in his circuits. His maintenance had not gone well. Soundly built by his masters, though perhaps not as well as battle-robs of the British of the Federation of the Rhine, he had not been crafted to last forever. Two centuries was a long time, especially for a child of brass gears and algorithmic circuits, who recalled perfectly the passing of every empty second.

  If only he had perished on the battlefield as had so many others. He turned from the window. While this was hardly a world at peace, the ability for humanity to make the sort of war for which Dax had been constructed had passed with the Fire. There remained for Dax only the slow decay that ate at him like a human cancer.

  Many of his weapon clusters were useless. There were no way to replace his worn parts. The world at large was trying to cope with rifled barrels and tempered steel. Certainly his atomic heart was beyond the power of any current human artificer to mend. Still, his defects were not readily apparent, and even most heavily armed bands of bandits were afraid to confront a robotic survivor of a war they knew only from horror stories told to children, a battle-rob who gleamed in the sun and stared at them unfathomable features and dispassionate glowing eyes.

  He thought of the humans with whom he traveled. When the immediate danger that had brought them together by the Sea of Glass had passed, he should have left them, to continue searching for the death his final program demanded. But he had remained. And when he gazed upon them, especially the girl, he harbored protective sensations. Perhaps it was just an indication that, along with his other systems, his logic circuits were also failing.

  On the morrow he would go to Jaffa with them. And from thence? Perhaps he would watch them depart, then journey down to Alexandria. The scholars at the Great Library might be able to help him. Or perhaps he would continue down to the sources of the Nile and the savage Afric empires of the vast southern continent. Or he might return to the Holy City, linger for awhile, wait for the advent of the pursuers who would surely come. In the end, he knew it did not matter because no path led to the goal he desired.

  Dax’s auditory circuits picked up a noise in the street below, the slow and steady movements of a person not wanting to be heard. The robot stood and looked into the street.

  In the darkness, people were as tiny fires to his receptors. From his vantage point Dax saw into the alley across from the inn. He shifted his head, receptors glowing ruddy with concern, separating shadows from deeper shadows. The samurais closed in on the inn, silent as the night, relentless as death.

  Dax ran a swift final systems check on his weapons clusters, then left the room, relentless and resolute.

  “We are being observed,” Ikeda said softly, his voice not carrying beyond Mitsuko’s ears. “A young man at a table across the room. He has a scar along his cheek like the Wrath of Susannowo. I saw him earlier today. He appears not to watch us, but he does.”

  “A spy?” Mitsuko whispered, resisting the impulse to glance in the direction indicated. “A barbarian in Lord Zempachi’s employ?”

  “In the Home Islands, the word of Zempachi is feared, but the barbarians of the outer world know neither his face nor name,” the old man pointed out. “There is something else at work here.”

  “What can we do?” Mitsuko asked. “The inn is so crowded we can do no more than he cam.”

  A derisive snort escaped the old scholar’s withered lips. “Do not look to these white barbarians for assistance. We are not of their race or fate, and that makes all the difference in the world.”

  The expression in Ikeda’s eyes made her look. “He comes toward us, but he does not seem to have the mien of a warrior.”

  Mitsuko and Ikeda openly gazed at the man in brown leather. It seemed to Mitsuko there was a vagueness in his expression, the hint of a sardonic smile, as if he were the sole possessor of some cosmic joke of unsurpassed subtlety. He approached the table and asked to join them.

  “Who are you?” Mitsuko asked as he sat down. “My friend told me you were observing us, that you did so earlier today.”

  The man’s smile broadened ever so slightly. “And did you also see me in Anyang and Teheran?”

  The grim expression on Ikeda’s face did not alter, and his hand did not stray from the hilt of his sword beneath the level of the table. “The question remains. Who are you?”

  “My name is Helmut Steinmetz,” he replied, “not that that will hold any meaning for you.”

  “It is of Teutonic origins,” Ikeda mused. “You are perhaps an agent of Bohemia, or from the Federation of the Rhine?”

  “No, neither of those lands, though your logic is impeccable, scholar,” Steinmetz said. “I am from a place you’ve never studied, have never encountered in scroll or rumor.” He leaned forward and regarded both fugitives, but concentrated on Mitsuko. “But you have dreamed of me and my land.”

  “You speak in riddles,” Ikeda snorted.

  “You have come a great distance,” Mitsuko said, motioning her companion to silence and gazing into the blue pools of the man’s eyes. “I have strange dreams at times, people and places unknown to me, perhaps of you. I do not know. Why are you here?”

  “I am an explorer,” Steinmetz explained. “There are many like me, leafing through the pages of the Book of Worlds. It is our duty to take the familiar outlines of the map and label them with unfamiliar names, to resurrect the great civilizations that are dust to us, or never were. It is our task to chart the differences, to note the similarities.” He sighed. “Did you know that the flapping of a butterfly’s wings on one side of the world can cause a storm on the other? It might destroy a city, but a small difference in the beats may cause a wind that brings home the fishing fleet. So it is with our actions and decisions. I, and others like me, tread the garden of forking paths.”

  Ikeda frowned, but nodded. “I have heard the story. Many worlds branching from one. It is only an exercise of the mind, for one cannot believe in the unknowable.”

  “Jerusalem is full of people who believe devoutly in what they can never know, a commonality, seemingly, in every universe.” The man smiled indulgently, as an adult might to an awkward child. “Other words are not nearly as elusive as God. I have visited many of those alternate worlds, and come from Earth Prime, from which all other worlds are derived.”

  “How can there be worlds beyond the one we see?” Mitsuko demanded. “I, too, have heard of the garden of forking paths, but as my companion said, it is only an exercise of the mind.”

  Steinmetz withdrew several photographs from his pocket and handed them to Mitsuko. In one, a young woman with Mitsuko’s face was garbed in a long white coat and stood next to Steinmetz in front of a strange machine. In other photographs, the girl who looked like Mitsuko held hands with Steinmetz in an unfamiliar city. In one they were kissing.

  “I do not understand,” she said, passing the photographs back to him. “She looks like me, but it cannot be me.”

  “No, not as you are now, not of this world, but of the world from which I come,” he explained. “We were friends…more than friends, and we worked together on charting all the myriad worlds.” He stared at Mitsuko with a disconcerting expression that entirely robbed her of words. “I was in Tokyo, the city you call Edo, when I first saw you. I wanted to contact you then, but I missed my chance. Then there was the murder, and your flight from Japan.”

  She cocked her head quizzically.

  “Nippon,” he said. “I have tried to catch you in other places, but I have always been too late, or the circumstances were not right. But now I am here.”

  “What do you want of me?”

  “To take you back to my world with me,” Steinmetz replied. “Come to Earth Prime, Mitsuko.” He turned to Ikeda. “You as well, scholar. I chose to approach you here because the warps and woofs in the fabric of time-space, which permit travel between words, are not equally propitious everywhere. Jerusalem is the best opportunity to present itself since Samarkand. I am offering you a chance to totally escape the da
nger that pursues you.”

  “In the morning, we travel to Jaffa, then further westward,” Ikeda said. “If necessary, we will seek asylum from the Catholic King of the Western Lands.”

  “But I can spirit you away from all the dangers of this world,” Steinmetz said with urgency. “Mitsuko, I can…”

  Ikeda touched Mitsuko’s arm. She looked up and saw Dax moving swiftly through the crowd in the common room, scattering from his path the few people who did not scurry before the advance of the gleaming battle-rob.

  “The warriors of Zempachi,” Dax reported in a soft, calm voice. “They surround the inn. We must escape immediately.”

  “Come with me!” Steinmetz pleaded, grabbing her arm. “I will not lose you again!”

  The door burst open and three samurai entered, swords drawn. One also carried an old automatic pistol. Dax would have targeted the man with the firearm, but there was no clear shot. His programs, born of a nobler if not gentler century, constrained him from harming non-combatants whenever possible. He sent a needle-missile into the chest of one of the swordsmen. Quilted fabric and blood puffed outward like an opening rose.

  Those who did not move from the path of destruction soon enough were beheaded or impaled, slashed or shot by samurai desperate to see an end to their long quest. Screams and shouts split the night. Mitsuko whipped her wakizashi sword from its sheath and countered the steel of one of the attackers.

  The man with the pistol fired at the gleaming hulk of the battle-rob. The jacketed projectile slammed into Dax’s shoulder and penetrated the machinery. Dax impassively evaluated the damage, swiveled his head toward the attacker and emitted a highly focused beam of coherent light, all the while praying to the strange gods of the metal people that his capacitors and relays would not overload.

  The man erupted in flame and fell. His weapon clattered away.

  The force of a sword blow knocked Mitsuko off balance. Before her attacker could take advantage of the situation, however, Steinmetz broke his neck.

  “There’s no more time!” Steinmetz gasped urgently. “You must come with me to the transfer point before the others attack. We can’t defeat them all.”

  A commotion at the rear of the inn, other warriors breaking through, decided Mitsuko and she let Steinmetz drag her out the entrance, Ikeda and Dax close behind and fighting furiously. Dax loosed a smoke grenade into the common room, transforming the confusion into utter chaos.

  They turned the corner and halted.

  Komurasaki stood in the alley, his two swords drawn. Behind him were the men who had traveled faithfully across the leagues in pursuit of Mitsuko and Ikeda, all to avenge the death of a monster. Sudden sounds behind Mitsuko told her that a couple of samurai, undelayed by Dax’s smoke tactic, blocked their retreat. There was nothing left to do but fight.

  “It is finally over,” Komurasaki said, though not harshly. “If you wish to reclaim honor by seppuku you will be allowed to do so. If not, then at least have the decorum to kneel so we may take your heads for our Lord, cleanly and without pain. It is not decorous to fight children, old men and soulless beings.”

  Mitsuko shook her head. “My life is my own, as it always has been. If you want it, you shall have to take it.”

  Komurasaki sighed.

  Dax tried to fire his missiles, but the mechanism jammed and the laser circuits shorted.

  So very old, Dax thought with objective bitterness. I have outlived my weapons, but not my usefulness.

  Even as he was, there was still one last task left to him, one final moment. He ran toward the startled warriors.

  Besides the traditional twin swords of their profession, the steadfast samurai also carried deadly weapons of past and present, some family heirlooms, others picked up during their overlong journey. Faced with the juggernaut battle-rob they abandoned hoary tradition and used projectile-throwing weaponry.

  Dax paid no heed to the jacketed projectiles piercing his armored body. He felt heat building deep within his belly as he let the fires of his creation run wild, felt the intoxicating glory of the approaching critical mass. He dimly heard Mitsuko calling his name and felt a sharp pang of regret, then knew only the pure white light of fulfillment.

  Mitsuko and Ikeda fell before the first tongue of atomic fire surged through the alley. Heat coursed over them, but seemed to vanish as suddenly as it appeared. Darkness and silence ebbed back to engulf them. Mitsuko sat up. Ikeda still lay flat, unconscious but still breathing. Of Komurasaki and others very little remained, and of Dax there was even less.

  She turned and saw no one blocking the way. Leaderless and dishonored, they could do naught but flee into the night. For them, the quest was over. They could never return to Edo and shame. If they did not commit seppuku the only path open was to remain in the west as a ronin, a masterless samurai, nothing more than a mercenary who would fight until finally overtaken by death.

  Mitsuko looked around and saw Steinmetz sitting against a wall. Blood stained his chest like a dark mysterious flower. He was alive, but there was nothing she could to save him. He stared at her with dimming, tear-filled eyes.

  “We lose each other again,” he said, his words like the sighing of a passing wind. “Perhaps another…please watch for…”

  Mitsuko closed his eyes. In his pocket she felt the photographs and removed them, slowly looking through them. There was one he had not shown her, and her gaze lingered over it now, considering the placid face of the familiar girl lying in her coffin. She heard a groan behind her, Ikeda regaining consciousness, but she could not look away from the impossible photograph.

  “Come, Mitsuko-san,” Ikeda said, gently pulling her to her feet. “This place is still not safe, but now for different reasons.”

  Mitsuko stood. She clutched the photographs to her breast and let herself be led away.

  The Inn of Three Cups was still wracked by confusion and terror despite the presence of the King’s guard and the police. They faced no difficulty in retrieving their possessions from their room and stealing into the night. In the Old Quarter of Jerusalem, Ikeda tapped on the door of an apothecary and obtained certain medicines from a white-haired Jew who asked no questions. The powders and salves would heal their wounds, seen and unseen.

  Despite the increased security within the city, they escaped to Jaffa and booked passage on a freighter bound for Albion. There, they could decide if it was still necessary to continue toward the Western Lands.

  In Tarshish, almost within sight of the Gates of Herakles, the captain shared news of the assassination of the Catholic King of the Western Lands. He had, they were told, died the very day they had departed Jaffa.

  Standing on the freighter’s afterdeck, with the Gates rising sheer on either side, Mitsuko gazed eastward, toward the gathering darkness. She felt as if she were caught between worlds, but one of them was slipping away.

  Pulling the photographs form safe-keeping, she looked through them one last time. The world they represented was as distant as the one she had known in Edo, and they were both now unreachable.

  She let the photographs slip from her fingers, watched as they fluttered toward the dark swirling sea. In the twilight they appeared as petals in the wind.

  Compared to my science fiction, fantasy and horror, my mystery output is just a sliver, even if you include my Sherlock Holmes tales and stories like “Agent in Hell” and “Orion’s Hunt,” as well as the Paws & Claws series, which are fantasies with crime elements. I’ve always loved mystery stories. It started when I spent a summer with my grandparents in rural Ramona, during which time I read every book that had been published in the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew series. The books belonged to Uncle Bob, but he kept them at his in-laws. My Mom tried to bargain their purchase with Uncle Bob, but he would have none of it, some silliness about saving them for his own kids…after the divorce I think they ended up in some thrift shop. Of the straight mysteries I’ve written, two of my favorites are “The Desert Giant Mystery” and “The Mystery of
the Bag Lady’s Bundle,” both published in ‘Teen magazine before the editors decided teens were more interested in Justin Bieber’s hair than in a good story. Why do I like them? Because in creating a brother-sister sleuthing team I followed in the footsteps of Franklin W Dixon and Carolyn Keene, and because I was hopefully giving some young reader the same pleasure I had experienced fifty years earlier. Here is a story firmly ensconced in the mystery genre but with an exotic locale that gives it more of a fantastic feel than it actually has.

  Murder in the Eyes of the Gods

  A Tale of Mystery

  The corpse lay sprawled upon the extinct volcano’s grassy slope, eyes open to the misting rain, surrounded by the megalithic statues of Easter Island. Their expressions had always seemed enigmatic to Inspector Roberto Reyes, but now, in the presence of death and beneath a sullen sky, they seemed especially pensive and brooding.

  Reyes kneeled beside the body. Buried to the hilt in his chest was a dagger, the handle ornately carved from a green stone not unlike jadeite. There was little blood upon the clothing and almost none upon the wet grass. There was some swelling where his head hit the ground and an odd bruise across his throat about a quarter-inch in width.

  At a grinding sound, Reyes jerked his gaze up. The ancient statues were stirring, their pursed lips trembling, their rocky eyes opening to reveal terrible stares. A moan sounded across the stark land, undulating like the horn of a distant hunter, and the statues began to whisper...

  Reyes jerked abruptly awake, then cursed himself for drifting off as dusk settled over the island.

  He picked up the Polaroid photos he had knocked off when waking and spread them on his desk. An Arizona (USA) driver’s license stated the dead man was Thomas Elliot Vale, 23, a resident of Flagstaff. His wallet held seventeen hundred dollars in cash and traveler’s checks, a student card from the University of Northern Arizona, three credit cards and, in a hidden pocket, a much-folded piece of parchment, obviously very old, and covered with the same symbols as on the knife. Robbery, obviously, was not a motive, and he had valued this parchment more than his money.