Asimov’s Future History Volume 13

by Isaac Asimov

  Widemos had been a traitor, and Widemos’s son had attempted a meeting with the Director of Rhodia. He had attempted it first in secret, and when that had failed, such was the urgency, he had attempted it openly with his ridiculous story of an assassination plot. Surely that must have been the beginning of a pattern.

  And now it fell apart. Hinrik was giving up the boy with indecent haste. He could not even wait the night, it seemed. And that did not fit at all. Or else Aratap had not yet learned all the facts.

  He focused his attention on the Director again. Hinrik was beginning to repeat himself. Aratap felt a twinge of compassion. The man had been made into such a coward that even the Tyranni themselves grew impatient with him. And yet it was the only way. Only fear could insure absolute loyalty. That and nothing else.

  Widemos had not been afraid, and despite the fact that his self-interest had been bound at every point with the maintenance of Tyrannian rule, he had rebelled. Hinrik was afraid and that made the difference,

  And because Hinrik was afraid, he sat there, lapsing into incoherence as he struggled to obtain some gesture of approval. The major would give none, of course, Aratap knew. The man had no imagination. He sighed and wished he had none either. Politics was a filthy business.

  So he said, with some air of animation, “Quite so. I commend your, quick decision and your zeal in the service of the Khan. You may be sure he will hear of it.”

  Hinrik brightened visibly, his relief obvious.

  Aratap said, “Have him brought in, then, and let us hear what our cockerel has to say.” He suppressed a desire to yawn. He had absolutely no interest in what the “cockerel” had to say.

  It was Hinrik’s intention at this point to signal for the captain of the guard, but there was no necessity for that, as the captain stood in the doorway, unannounced.

  “Excellency,” he cried and strode in without waiting for permission.

  Hinrik stared hard at his hand, still inches from the signal, as though wondering whether his intention had somehow developed sufficient force to substitute for the act.

  He said uncertainly, “What is it, Captain?”

  The captain said, “Excellency, the prisoner has escaped.”

  Aratap felt some of the weariness disappear. What was this? “The details, Captain!” he ordered, and straightened in his chair.

  The captain gave them with a blunt economy of words.

  He concluded, “I ask your permission, Excellency, to proclaim a general alarm. They are yet but minutes away.”

  “Yes, by all means,” stuttered Hinrik, “by all means. A general alarm, indeed. Just the thing. Quickly! Quickly! Commissioner, I cannot understand how it could have happened. Captain, put every man to work. There will be an investigation, Commissioner. If necessary, every man on the guards will be broken. Broken! Broken!”

  He repeated the word in near hysteria but the captain remained standing. It was obvious that he had more to say.

  Aratap said, “Why do you wait?”

  “May I speak to Your Excellency in private?” said the captain abruptly.

  Hinrik cast a quick, frightened look at the bland, unperturbed Commissioner. He mustered a feeble indignation. “There are no secrets from the soldiers of the Khan, our friends, our–”

  “Say your say, Captain,” interposed Aratap gently.

  The captain brought his heels together sharply and said, “Since I am ordered to speak, Your Excellency, I regret to inform you that my Lady Artemisia and my Lord Gillbret accompanied the prisoner in his escape.”

  “He dared to kidnap them?” Hinrik was on his feet. “And my guards allowed it?”

  “They were not kidnapped, Excellency. They accompanied him voluntarily.”

  “How do you know?” Aratap was delighted, and thoroughly awake. It formed a pattern now, after all. A better pattern than he could have anticipated.

  The captain said, “We have the testimony of the guard they overpowered, and the guards who, unwittingly, allowed them to leave the building.” He hesitated, then added grimly, “When I interviewed my Lady Artemisia at the door of her private chambers, she told me she had been on the point of sleep. It was only later that I realized that when she told me that, her face was elaborately made-up. When I returned, it was too late. I accept the blame for the mismanagement of this affair. After tonight I will request Your Excellency to accept my resignation, but first have I still your permission to sound the general alarm? Without your authority I could not interfere with members of the royal family.”

  But Hinrik was swaying on his feet and could only stare at him vacantly.

  Aratap said, “Captain, you would do better to look to the health of your Director. I would suggest you call his physician.”

  “The general alarm!” repeated the captain.

  “There will be no general alarm,” said Aratap. “Do you understand me? No general alarm! No recapture of the prisoner! The incident is closed! Return your men to their quarters and ordinary duties and look to your Director. Come, Major.”

  The Tyrannian major spoke tensely once they had left the mass of Palace Central behind them.

  “Aratap,” he said, “I presume you know what you’re doing. I kept my mouth shut in there on the basis of that presumption.”

  “Thank you, Major.” Aratap liked the night air of a planet full of green and growing things. Tyrann was more beautiful in its way, but it was a terrible beauty of rocks and mountains. It was dry, dry!

  He went on: “You cannot handle Hinrik, Major Andros. In your hands he would wilt and break. He is useful, but requires gentle treatment if he is to remain so.”

  The major brushed that aside. “I’m not referring to that. Why not the general alarm? Don’t you want them?”

  “Do you?” Aratap stopped. “Let us sit here for a moment, Andros. A bench on a pathway along a lawn. What more beautiful, and what place is safer from spy beams? Why do you want the young man, Major?”

  “Why do I want any traitor and conspirator?”

  “Why do you, indeed, if you only catch a few tools while leaving the source of the poison untouched? Whom would you have? A cub, a silly girl, a senile idiot?”

  There was a faint splashing of an artificial waterfall nearby. A small one, but decorative. Now that was a real wonder to Aratap. Imagine water, spilling out, running to waste, pouring indefinitely down the rocks and along the ground. He had never educated himself out of a certain indignation over it.

  “As it is,” said the major, “we have nothing.”

  “We have a pattern. When the young man first arrived, we connected him with Hinrik, and that bothered us, because Hinrik is–what he is. But it was the best we could do. Now we see it was not Hinrik at all; that Hinrik was a misdirection. It was Hinrik’s daughter and cousin he was after, and that makes more sense.”

  “Why didn’t he call us sooner? He waited for the middle of the night.”

  “Because he is the tool of whoever is the first to reach him, and Gillbret, I am sure, suggested this night meeting as a sign of great zeal on his part.”

  “You mean we were called here on purpose? To witness their escape?”.

  “No, not for that reason. Ask yourself. Where do these people intend on going?”

  The major shrugged.–” Rhodia is big.”

  “Yes, if it were the young Farrill alone who was concerned. But where on Rhodia would two members of the royal family go unrecognized? Particularly the girl.”

  “They would have to leave the planet, then? Yes, I agree.”

  “And from where? They can reach the Palace Field in a fifteen-minute walk. Now do you see the purpose of our being here?”

  The major said, “Our ship?”

  “Of course. A Tyrannian ship would seem ideal to them. Otherwise, they would have to choose among freighters. Farrill has been educated on Earth, and, I’m sure, can fly a cruiser.”

  “Now there’s a point. Why do we allow the nobility to send out their sons in all direction
s? What business has a subject to know more about travel than will suffice him for local trade? We bring up soldiers against us.”

  “Nevertheless,” said Aratap, with polite indifference, “at the moment Farrill has a foreign education, and let us take that into account objectively, without growing angry about it. The fact remains that I am certain they have taken our cruiser.”

  “I can’t believe it.”

  “You have your wrist caller. Make contact with the ship, if you can.”

  The major tried, futilely.

  Aratap said, “Try the Field Tower.”

  The major did so, and the small voice came out of the tiny receiver, in minute agitation: “But, Excellency, I don’t understand–There is some mistake. Your pilot took off ten minutes ago.”

  Aratap was smiling. “You see? Work out the pattern and each little event becomes inevitable. And now do you see the consequences?”

  The major did. He slapped his thigh, and laughed briefly. “Of course!” he said.

  “Well,” said Aratap, “they couldn’t know, of course, but they have ruined themselves. Had they been satisfied with the clumsiest Rhodian freighter on the field, they would surely have escaped and–what’s the expression?–I would have been caught with my trousers down this night. As it is, my trousers are firmly belted, and nothing can save them. And when I pluck them back, in my own good time”–he emphasized the words with satisfaction–” I will have the rest of the conspiracy in my hands as well.”

  He sighed and found himself beginning to feel sleepy once more. “Well, we have been lucky, and now there is no hurry. Call Central Base, and have them send another ship after us.”

  Ten: Maybe!

  BIRON FARRILL’S TRAINING in spationautics back on Earth had been largely academic. There had been the university courses in the various phases of spatial engineering, which, though half a semester was spent on the theory of the hyperatornic motor, offered little when it came to the actual manipulation of ships in space. The best and most skilled pilots learned their art in space and not in schoolrooms.

  He had managed to take off without actual accident, though that was more luck than design. The Remorseless answered the controls far more quickly than Biron had anticipated. He had manipulated several ships on Earth out into space and back to the planet, but those had been aged and sedate models, maintained for the use of students. They had been gentle, and very, very tired, and had lifted with an effort and spiraled slowly upward through the atmosphere and into space.

  The Remorseless, on the other hand, had lifted effortlessly, springing upward and whistling through the air, so that Biron had fallen backward out of his chair and all but dislocated his shoulder. Artemisia and Gillbret, who, with the greater caution of the inexperienced, had strapped themselves in, were bruised against the padded webbing. The Tyrannian prisoner had lain pressed against the wall, tearing heavily at his bonds and cursing in a monotone.

  Biron had risen shakily to his feet, kicked the Tyrannian into a brooding silence, and made his way along the wall rail, hand over hand against the acceleration, back to his seat. Forward blasts of power quivered the ship and reduced the rate of increasing velocity to a bearable quantity.

  They were in the upper reaches of the Rhodian atmosphere by then. The sky was a deep violet and the hull of the ship was hot with air friction, so that warmth could be felt within.

  It took hours thereafter to set the ship into an orbit about Rhodia. Biron could find no way of readily calculating the velocity necessary to overcome Rhodia’s gravity. He had to work it by hit and miss, varying the velocity with puffs of power forward and backward, watching the massometer, which indicated their distance from the planet’s surface by measuring the intensity of the gravitational field. Fortunately, the massometer was already calibrated for Rhodia’s mass and radius. Without considerable experimentation, Biron could not have adjusted the calibration himself.

  Eventually, the massometer held steady and over a period of two hours showed no appreciable drift. Biron allowed himself to relax, and the others climbed out of their belts.

  Artemisia said, “You don’t have a very light touch, my Lord Rancher.”

  “I’m flying, my lady,” Biron replied curtly. “If you can do better, you’re welcome to try, but only after I myself disembark.”

  “Quiet, quiet, quiet,” said Gillbret. “The ship is too cramped for pettishness, and, in addition, since we are to be crushed into an inconvenient familiarity in this leaping prison pen, I suggest we discard the many ‘lords’ and ‘ladies’ which will otherwise encrust our conversation to an unbearable degree. I am Gillbret, you are Biron, she is Artemisia. I suggest we memorize those terms of address, or any variation we care to use. And as for piloting the ship, why not use the help of our Tyrannian friend here?”

  The Tyrannian glared, and Biron said, “No. There is no way we could trust him. And my own piloting will improve as I get the hang of this ship. I haven’t cracked you up yet, have I?”

  His shoulder still hurt as a result of the first lurch and, as usual, pain made him peevish.

  “Well,” said Gillbret, “what do we do with him?”

  “I don’t like to kill him in cold blood,” said Biron, “and that won’t help us. It would just make the Tyranni doubly excited. Killing one of the master race is really the unforgivable sin.”

  “But what is the alternative?”

  “We’ll land him.”

  “All right. But where?”

  “On Rhodia.”

  “What!”

  “It’s the one place they won’t be looking for us. Besides which, we’ve got to go down pretty soon, anyway.”

  “Why?”

  “Look, this is the Commissioner’s ship, and he’s been using it for hopping about the surface of the planet. It isn’t provisioned for space voyages. Before we go anywhere, we’ll have to take complete inventory aboard ship, and at least make sure that we have enough food and water.”

  Artemisia was nodding vigorously. “That’s right. Good! I wouldn’t have thought of that myself. That’s very clever, Biron.”

  Biron made a deprecating gesture, but warmed with pleasure, nevertheless. It was the first time she had used his first name. She could be quite pleasant, when she tried.

  Gillbret said, “But he’ll radio our whereabouts instantly.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Biron. “In the first place, Rhodia has its desolate areas, I imagine. We don’t have to drop him into the business section of a city, or into the middle of one of the Tyrannian garrisons. Besides, he may not be so anxious to contact his superiors as you might think.... Say, Private, what would happen to a soldier who allowed the Commissioner of the Khan to have his private cruiser stolen from him?”

  The prisoner did not answer, but his lip line became, pale and thin.

  Biron would not have wanted to be in the soldier’s place. To be sure, he could scarcely be blamed. There was no reason why he should have suspected trouble resulting from mere politeness to members of the Rhodian royal family. Sticking to the letter of the Tyrannian military code, he had refused to allow them aboard ship without the permission of his commanding officer. If the Director himself had demanded permission to enter, he insisted, he would have to deny it. But, in the meantime, they had closed in upon him, and by the time he realized he should have followed the military code still more closely and had his weapon ready, it was too late. A neuronic whip was practically touching his chest.

  Nor had he given in tamely, even then. It had taken a whip blast at his chest to stop him. And, even so, he could face only court-martial and conviction. No one doubted that, least of all the soldier.

  They had landed two days later at the outskirts of the city of Southwark. It had been chosen deliberately because it lay far from the main centers of Rhodian population. The Tyrannian soldier had been strapped into a repulsion unit and allowed to flutter downward some fifty miles from the nearest sizable town.

  The landing, on an e
mpty beach, was only mildly jerky, and Biron, as the one least likely to be recognized, made the necessary purchases. Such Rhodian currency as Gillbret had had the presence of mind to bring with him had scarcely sufficed for elementary needs, since much of it went for a little biwheel and tow cart, on which he could carry the supplies away piecemeal.

  “You might have stretched the money farther,” said Artemisia, “if you hadn’t wasted so much of it on the Tyrannian mush you bought.”

  “I think there was nothing else to do,” said Biron hotly. “It may be Tyrannian mush to you, but it’s a well-balanced food, and will see us through better than anything else I could have gotten.”

  He was annoyed. It had been stevedore’s work, getting all that out of the city and then aboard ship. And it had meant a considerable risk, buying it at one of the Tyrannian-run commissaries in the city. He had expected appreciation.

  And there was no alternative anyway. The Tyrannian forces had evolved an entire technique of supply adapted strictly to the fact that they used tiny ships. They couldn’t afford the huge storage spaces of other fleets which were stacked with the carcasses of whole animals, neatly hung in rows. They had had to develop a standard food concentrate containing what was necessary in the way of calories and food factors and let it go at that. It took up only one twentieth of the space that an equivalent supply of natural animal food would take, and it could be piled up in the low-temperature storeroom like packaged bricks.

  “Well, it tastes awful,” said Artemisia.

  “Well, you’ll get used to it,” retorted Biron, mimicking her petulance, so that she flushed and turned away angrily.

  What was bothering her, Biron knew, was simply the lack of space and all that accompanied the lack. It wasn’t just a question of using a monotonous food stock because in that way more calories could be packed to the cubic inch. It was that there were no separate sleeping rooms, for instance. There were the engine rooms and the control room, which took up most of the ship’s space. (After all, Biron thought, this is a warship, not a pleasure yacht.) Then there was the storeroom, and. one small cabin, with two tiers of three bunks on either side. The plumbing was located in a little niche just outside the cabin.