by Zach Hughes
The door had an old-fashioned lock which required a mechanical key. He used a more modernkey, the small cutter he'd brought from theSkimmer,slicing the bolt neatly as he played the cutting beam into the small crack between door andjamb.
The priests had done all right for themselves.The sanctuary was a storehouse of treasures, of artand gold and incongruous mechanical items fromthe old colony ship. What he was looking for stoodon a dais at the far end of the room.
There must have been, he thought, some pretty good artists aboard that old ship, for the statues inthe main entry to the temple were realistic andvery well done, and the statue of the god whosename couldn't be spoken aloud was still morerealistic.
He stood there as if alive, in the gaudy uniformof a Zede admiral of the fleet. His name was engraved in stone on the pedestal on which he stood,Admiral Torga Bluntz.
Luck was with Pat. There were no priests in thesanctuary, no warning sensors. Strict, theocratically applied discipline had, for a thousand years,made good citizens of the Dorchlunters. There wasno need to set guards, except for ceremony, asguards were used in front of the temple. His luckcontinued as he climbed onto the dais. The statueof the fleet admiral was life-size, and was within ahalf inch of Pat's height. Torga Bluntz had been aman of personal discipline, too, for, although hisface, painted in lifelike color, showed the wrinklesof age, he had kept himself in condition.
The uniform in which the statue was dressedhad, evidently, been renewed in the recent past.Although the material was the homespun of Dorchlunt, the insignia were of ancient metal. Thecoat and high-necked shirt came off the statueeasily. The trousers were another matter. The statuewas carved from native stone. There was no wayto slip the trousers off the statue's feet. However, abit of study showed Pat how the trousers had beenput on. The back seams of the legs and pants of thetrousers were basted loosely together. Pat took hisfingernail trimmer and cut the threads, and then,the uniform folded neatly, made his way back totheSkimmer.
A bachelor is forced to develop some odd skills.Pat could handle an automatic hand-held stitcher.The seams may not have been exactly straightwhen he finished, but the trousers were in onepiece, the legs sewn into tubes, and the flat of the seat closed, and they fit him fairly well. The high-necked shirt was a bit tight, but the coat fit comfortably. The ornate gold-braided cap fit after he put some folds of cloth at the back to make it a bitsmaller. He examined himself in the mirror in hiscabin and was satisfied.
He locked the uniform in his personal locker andwent to sleep. The final parade of the gunners was scheduled for midday. He wouldn't have any opportunity to talk to Gorben, or any of the Dorchlunter gunners, until after the dress review. Hedidn't know exactly how he'd accomplish itafter the review, other than by going into the villages toseek Gorben out. He'd have to find an excuse forthat, without arousing Corinne's suspicions. He hoped that she'd be busy with whatever last-minutepreparations a woman makes before going out to conquer a galaxy.
He was awakened by the ship's communicator.It sent a persistent melodic summons which, thetimer told him, had been sounding for almost halfa minute. He'd have to be a bit more alert thanthat if he ever got back into space.
The Brenden was on. "I thought maybe I'd calledthe wrong place," Brenden said with a chuckle. "Iwas just going to call Cory's apartment."
"I was sleeping in," Pat said.
"Pat, have Cory find you a uniform. You two aregoing to have to review the troops today. I justhad a ship come in from home, and there are somedetails I have to handle. I should be finished byearly evening. We'll all get together for a celebration before the big day."
He was gone. When he was dealing with business, the Brenden could be curt.
Pat thought about that. It was good that Brendenwasn't going to be planetside. Now all he'd haveto do was sneak away from Corinne.
The review would begin in two hours. Pat had aquick snack for breakfast, then went into the temple. The priests were going about their duties, whatever they were, calmly. Apparently they had not discovered that the lock on the door of the admiral's sanctuary had been cut open and then fused back together.
He was near the corridor which led to the practice range for gunners. He wondered if any of themwere there. Probably not, but he went through theworking area, where priests were still trying to dowonders like make a thorn vine bear potatoes. Thepractice range was dark and inactive. On the wayback through the work area he saw a priest packaging the tablets he recognized as the food supplements and preventive medicine given to the Dorchlunters. He paused to watch a moment.
"Good morning, sir," the priest said. He was oneof the oldest Dorchlunters Pat had seen, perhapsover fifty.
"How's it going?" Pat asked.
"Well, well. The young men must have their prayer tablets when they soar away to glory."
"And is it your job to dispense the prayertablets?"
"I have the honor to be the temple healer," thepriest said.
A sneaky idea came to Pat. That the idea wasnot original to him made for a certain sense ofjustice.
"Healer," he said, "you are fortunately met." The Old Earth language made for a formality of phrase. "As
it happens, I have difficulty sleeping. Perhapsyou have something to help?"
"My pleasure, sir," the healer said. He walked toa cabinet and came back with a small box. "Thereis a measuring spoon inside, sir. For a man ofyour size and weight, I recommend one scoop. Ifthat is not
enough, try two, and by no meansshould you ever ingest more than five scoops inone night."
"Is the powder quick-acting?"
"Very quick-acting sir." He chuckled. "It mightbe best if you are prepared for bed before you takethe
powder."
Corinne was waiting for him. She was already inuniform, although there was still plenty of time towait before going to the parade grounds. Pat suggested that there was, indeed, time for a littletaste of
something to give them energy for the longceremony. He went to the bar and mixed.
"I'd just as soon call off the review," she said.
"No, I think the gunners are looking forward toit," he said.
"Yes, I'm sure you're right." She seemed slightlyagitated. When he remarked on it she said, "I was
thinking of what happened yesterday. You're right,Pat, they won't give up easily."
"We'll come through all right," he said. "Drinkup. It'll make you feel better."
"I am so sleepy all of a sudden," she said, notten minutes later, as she cuddled in his arms on thesofa. He
smoothed her glorious auburn hair.
"Take a little nap," he said. "I'll wake you whenit's time."
"Don't know why I'm so . . ." she said. Then,after a long pause, she tried to say "sleepy," managed only
"sleeee . .."
He carried her to her bed, covered her with alight sheet, looked down into that beautiful facewhich seemed so innocent. "I hope it won't giveyou as bad a hangover as I had the first time," he said.
He experimented with trying to wake her. Nothing, not even lifting her and shaking her, would dothe job. He had just under thirty minutes before the first of the troops would begin to form on theparade ground. He went back to theSkimmer tomake his preparations, walked around the temple,wearing a long greatcoat which was much too warm for the climate, took his place on the review stand,standing quite alone and straight, the greatcoatcovering the uniform of Fleet Admiral Torga Bluntz. He would not have to find a way to sneak into thevillages to talk with Gorben and a few of the others.He would have them all assembled before him within a half hour.
The handsome, well-formed, blond young menof Dorchlunt marched in company-size formationsonto the field, feet moving in perfect unison, eyessnapping right as they passed the review stand,where, to their initial puzzlement, one man in agreatcoat stood to watch them. Gorben and a few of the others recognized Pat, and for Gorben it wasa special thrill to know that his friend had the sole honor of the final re
view before glory.
The voices of the officers and the drill sergeants rang out in the still, warm air. The sound of feet inunison thudded on hard-packed ground. And thenthey stood before him, two thousand strong, asfine a group of young men as Pat had ever seen.For a moment, terrible doubt came to him, but heforced himself to picture a massive UP fleet dying, and then the march of the Brenden's form of government, with its hard-eyed security police, acrossthe populated galaxy.
The gunners stood at attention. Pat had beenstanding with his hands behind his back. He raisedone hand, placed the. admiral's cap on his head,shrugged out of the greatcoat and let it fall, andtook two steps forward.
A gasping moan of surprise came from two thousand young throats. Military stance forgotten, the gunners made three quick bows, some of them soconfused by the sight of the god in the flesh thatthey at first tried to turn to face the temple andthe god's shrine.
"Stand at ease," Pat roared.
Discipline returned. Feet moved in unison. Armsshot behind backs.
The God Fleet Admiral Torga Bluntz, Gorbenrealized with a thrill of pride, had been among them for some time, and had actually favored him,Gorben, with his friendship. He stood at ease, hisyoung chest thrust forward, his eyes adoringly upon the resplendent figure on the stand. The God Bluntzhad returned, just as he had promised he would,and was there to lead them back to their rightful place in Zede and in glory. And the god had oncetold him, had he not, that soon all would be ableto speak his name openly.
"Warriors of Zede," Pat said, using a hailer so that his voice carried to the last man in the rear ranks and reverberated into the distance. "I commend you on your work, and on your readiness."
The God Bluntz had more to say, much more,and when he had finished the young gunners stood,stunned with surprise and happiness. Then, as from one throat, their voices rose to the skies in a thunderous cheer. The God Bluntz raised his hands.
"I will speak, here, with Gunner Gorben," hesaid.
Gorben felt that he would burst with pride as hemarched to the stand.
"My friend," Pat said, moved almost to tears by the look of pride and happiness on Gorben's face, "call here the gunner who will be with me on theflagship of the goddess."
"Sir," Gorben barked. He made a precise about-face. "Gunner Werner, front and center."
A tall young man broke from the ranks anddouble-timed forward.
"Tell the officers," Pat said, "to move the troopsand dismiss them. You two come up here withme."
The God Bluntz had special instructions for thegunners Gorben and Werner. His instructions tothe troops had fired the hearts of all with gladness. His words to the two on the stand—whiledrill sergeants and officers bawled orders and thetroops marched off—had a different effect, althoughboth young men tried to hide it.
Pat was not proud of himself. He knew that hewould always remember the almost hysterical cheerof sheer joy which two thousand young men had given him.
Nor was he proud of his actions with Corinne.When he returned to her apartment, after stowingthe admiral's uniform inSkimmer, she was stillsleeping. When she awoke, well past eleven that night—Brenden had sent word that he would not,after all, be able to join them for dinner—she was astounded to learn that she'd slept the day away.
"I don't know why," she said. "I just don't know."
"Reaction, I guess," Pat said. "Now that the end is so near all the work and tension is catching upwith you."
"Don't leave me, Pat. Not tonight."
He didn't. She fell asleep again, and he sat therebeside her bed, dozing now and then, until wellafter dawn.
THIRTEEN
The Taratwo fleet, the most devastating instrumentof destruction ever assembled, blinked as a unit to the area of operations. Aboard Corinne's flagship,Pat was in command. He had suggested to theBrenden that the first engagement should be according to existing naval strategy, based on the massed firepower of huge fleets. Later, he wouldtry to come up with some variations to entertainthe gunners of the Brenden's half of the fleet.
Everyone knew in advance the outcome of thefirst engagement. The previous exercises had proved beyond doubt that the disrupters could score atleast one deadly hit on each enemy ship before conventional weapons began to take a toll.
Corinne seemed to be thinking of other things asPat positioned his fleet in a traditional grid. Fromthat formation the central-fire-control computerwould direct the fire of small groups of ships onindividual targets, the massed power of the laserscutting through the shield of the targeted shipwithin less than two minutes. Ordinarily, it wouldhave been a deadly strategy, for the fleet of overtwo thousand ships, firing in units of ten, wouldtake out two hundred enemy ships in the first twominutes. The Brenden, seeing Pat's formation onthe screens, arrayed his fleet in a long, thin bankwhich, as the range closed, began to adjust into ahalf crescent, so that the ships on the flanks couldencircle Pat's formation and rake enfilading fire down the straight ranks of ships.
Pat walked forward to stand beside the gunner, Werner. Although Pat was dressed in the uniformof the Taratwo navy, Werner bowed his headquickly three times and looked at him adoringly.
"All is well?" Pat asked.
"Yes, Holiness," Werner said. Pat put his hand on the ugly yet graceful snout of the disrupter tofeel its warmth. The secondary power was on. Theweapon was alive, and the beam of power whichcame from the snout would not be that harmlessstream of electrons which had been used previouslyin the exercises to allow the target ship's computerto register a hit.
"Your reward, Gunner Werner, will be great,"he said, feeling his stomach turn at his own duplicity. Those beautiful young men were so eager,so easily influenced. When this was all over themind scientists of the UP would spend years, decades, writing papers about the effects of repression of knowledge and specialized training in aclosed society.
The small, controlled community on Dorchluntwas much like the weapon that the long-dead Zede scientists had developed. A series of impulses wasinjected into each, and those forces continued, around, and around, and around, until, in the caseof the disrupter, the force was near the point ofloss of control and came bursting out in the formof a burst of sheer energy of overwhelming power.
The human brain, being quite adaptable, couldhave, in the case of the closed system on Dorchluntwhose components were flesh and blood, continued to accept the forces enclosed for an unpredictable period. However, Pat felt, sooner or later that closed system, too, would have had to find releaseof its energies. Perhaps, given time, some youngman like Gorben would have begun to questionthe thousand-year-old doctrine, or would have comeup with some simple invention which would havebeen a minor but growing disruptive influence tothe rule of the priests.
Now there would be no chance of that. Dorchluntwould not be the same after today.
The fleets closed, moving at a fraction of light speed on their flux drives. It would begin withinminutes. Pat's stomach was acting up. He swallowed the desire to run for a sanitary cabinet tovomit up the fear and regret that had seemed tocollect in his belly.
"Mr. Kelly," he said to the Taratwo fire control officer who would direct the fleet's conventional weapons, "you may fire when you are withinrange."
There were only three men, other than Pat andCorinne, on the bridge of the flagship. The trend inbuilding ships of war had been, in the past decade,toward more computer control and smaller crews.The entire compliment of the flagship was just tenmen.
Pat saw the flickering from afar, the small winking of the Brenden's lasers beginning, and heardhis own conventional weapons open up at extremerange. The screens of his own ships were not evenstrained, and he knew the same was true for thoseof the Brenden.
He had to give no further orders to Werner, who, as flagship gunner, was coordinating the fire of the gunners throughout Pat's half of the fleet. He heldhis breath. Now the screens began to sizzle and indicators began to blink estimates of loss of screenpower as the laser weapons began to take their toll
—simulated, of course, for this was, after all,just a war game between elements of the samefleet.
Pat had to breathe. He looked doubtfully towardWerner's position. The disrupter installation couldnot be seen from the bridge. He checked the range.Why were the disrupters not firing? Damage wasbeing done by the lasers.
A feeling of mixed relief and dulled acceptancecame to him. The gunners were not going to obeythe orders of the God Fleet Admiral Torga Bluntz,after all.
He looked at Corinne. Well, history would be hisjudge. Perhaps, in some distant day of sanity, they'd look back and write about the trailer Audrey Patricia Howe, who joined the forces of the dictatorwho threw the populated galaxy into a new DarkAge. And those future historians wouldn't even know that he'd tried, wouldn't know that at oneparticular moment in time, when it seemed thathis desperate plan had failed, he felt relief andlooked at a woman, the dictator's sister, with ahunger which, being projected into her own greeneyes, set her face flushing and caused her to makea tentative movement toward him.
And then they fired.
With a clicking rush the counters began to tell ofdisrupter hits on the ships of the Brenden's fleet,and the flagship's computer began to go crazywith alarms and warnings even while indicatingthat the ranks of Pat's grid were being reducedwith the same deadly efficiency that had been themark of the disrupter gunners in previous exercises.
And in the midst of it, in the clicking rush ofcounters and the grim closing movement of thefleets, the Brenden's voice roaring, "Cease fire, Ceasefire."
Corinne had leaped to her feet. Her face waswhite; one hand was at her throat. Kelly, the fire-control officer, and the other crew members atpositions on the bridge had their own jobs andwere not aware that the hits being registered werenot made by harmless beams of electrons from theprimary power source.
On both sides of the battle line men and shipswere dying.
For a few seconds, before the fully armed disrupters began to fire, before the amazingly swiftgunners began to play the game in earnest, Pathad thought that the closed system which wasDorchlunt had become too engorged with superstition and blind obedience. He had feared that theyoung men of Dorchlunt had decided to break outof the circle, to disobey the orders of the God FleetAdmiral Torga Bluntz, who, as they stood at easeon the parade ground on the previous day, hadexplained carefully that the time had come forthem to return to glory, to go to Zede not weak inthe flesh, but powerful in the spirit so as to accomplish the desired return of all to their past positions of power and glory.
