Asimov’s Future History Volume 13

by Isaac Asimov

  Biron shouted, “I have come to warn you. The hyperatomics are shorted. A Jump will mean the death of us all. I ask only that you check the motors. You will lose a few hours, perhaps, if I am wrong. You will save your lives, if I am right.”

  Someone called, “Go down there and get him.”

  Biron yelled, “Will you sell your lives rather than listen?”

  He heard the cautious sound of many feet, and shrank backward. Then there was a sound above. A soldier was sliding down the engine toward him, hugging its faintly warm skin as though it were a bride. Biron waited. He could still use his arms.

  And then the voice came from above, unnaturally loud, penetrating every corner of the huge room. It said, “Back to your places. Halt preparations for the Jump. Check the hyperatomics.”

  It was Aratap, speaking through the public-address system. The order then came, “Bring the young man to me.”

  Biron allowed himself to be taken. There were two soldiers on each side, holding him as though they expected him to explode. He tried to force himself to walk naturally, but he was limping badly.

  Aratap was in semidress. His eyes seemed different: faded, peering, unfocused. It occurred to Biron that the man wore contact lenses.

  Aratap said, “You have created quite a stir, Farrill.”

  “It was necessary to save the ship. Send these guards away. As long as the engines are being investigated, there’s nothing more I intend doing.”

  “They will stay just awhile. At least, until I hear from my engine men.”

  They waited, silently, as the minutes dragged on, and then there was a flash of red upon the frosted-glass circle above the glowing lettering that read “Engine Room.”

  Aratap opened contact. “Make your report!”

  The words that came were crisp and hurried: “Hyperatomics on the C Bank completely shorted. Repairs under way.”

  Aratap said, “Have Jump recalculated for plus six hours.”

  He turned to Biron and said coolly, “You were right.”

  He gestured. The guards saluted, turned on their heels, and left one by one with a smooth precision. Aratap said, “The details, please.”

  “Gillbret oth Hinriad during his stay in the engine room thought the shorting would be a good idea. The man is not responsible for his actions and must not be punished for it.”

  Aratap nodded. “He has not been considered responsible for years. That portion of the events will remain between you and me only. However, my interest and curiosity are aroused by your reasons for preventing the destruction of the ship. You are surely not afraid to die in a good cause?”

  “There is no cause,” said Biron. “There is no rebellion world. I have told you so already and I repeat it. Lingane was the center of revolt, and that has been checked. I was interested only in tracking down my father’s murderer, the Lady Artemisia only in escaping an unwanted marriage. As for Gillbret, he is mad.”

  “Yet the Autarch believed in the existence of this mysterious planet. Surely he gave me the co-ordinates of something!”

  “His belief is based on a madman’s dream. Gillbret dreamed something twenty years ago. Using that as a basis, the Autarch calculated five possible planets as the site of this dream world. It is all nonsense.”

  The commissioner said, “And yet something disturbs me.”

  “What?”

  “You are working so hard to persuade me. Surely I will find all this out for myself once I have made the Jump. Consider that it is not impossible that in desperation one of you might endanger the ship and the other save it as a complicated method for convincing me that I need look no further for the rebellion world. I would say to myself: If there were really such a world, young Farrill would have let the ship vaporize, for he is a young man and romantically capable of dying what he would consider a hero’s death. Since he has risked his life to prevent that happening, Gillbret is mad, there is no rebellion world, and I will return without searching further. Am I too complicated for you?”

  “No. I understand you.”

  “And since you have saved our lives, you will receive appropriate consideration in the Khan’s court. You will have saved your life and your cause. No, young sir, I am not quite so ready to believe the obvious. We will still make the Jump.”

  “I have no objections,” said Biron.

  “You are cool,” said Aratap. “It is a pity you were not born one of us.”

  He meant it as a compliment. He went on, “We’ll take you back to your cell now, and replace the force field. A simple precaution.”

  Biron nodded.

  The guard that Biron had knocked out was no longer there when they returned to the prison room, but the doctor was. He was bending over the still-unconscious form of Gillbret.

  Aratap said, “Is he still under?”

  At his voice the doctor jumped up. “The effects of the whip have worn off, Commissioner, but the man is not young and has been under a strain. I don’t know if he will recover.”

  Biron felt horror fill him. He dropped to his knees, disregarding the wrenching pain, and reached out a hand to touch Gillbret’s shoulder gently.

  “Gil,” he whispered. He watched the damp, white face, anxiously.

  “Out of the way, man.” The medical officer was scowling at him. He removed his black doctor’s wallet from an inner pocket.

  “At least the hypodermics aren’t broken,” he grumbled. He leaned over Gillbret, the hypodermic, filled with its colorless fluid, poised. It sank deep, and the plunger pressed inward automatically. The doctor tossed it aside and they waited.

  Gillbret’s eyes flickered, then opened. For a while they stared unseeingly. When he spoke finally, his voice was a whisper. “I can’t see, Biron. I can’t see.”

  Biron leaned close again. “It’s all right, Oil. Just rest.”

  “I don’t want to.” He tried to struggle upright. “Biron, when are. they Jumping?”

  “Soon, soon!”

  “Stay with me, then. I don’t want to die alone.” His fingers clutched feebly, and then relaxed. His head lolled backward.

  The doctor stooped, then straightened. “We were too late. He’s dead.”

  Tears stung at Biron’s eyelids. “I’m sorry, Oil,” he said, “but you didn’t know. You didn’t understand.” They didn’t hear him.

  They were hard hours for Biron. Aratap had refused to allow him to attend the ceremonies involved in the burial of a body at space. Somewhere in the ship, he knew, Gillbret’s body would be blasted in an atomic furnace and then exhausted into space, where its atoms might mingle forever with the thin wisps of interstellar matter.

  Artemisia and Hinrik would be there. Would they understand? Would she understand that he had done only what he had to do?

  The doctor had injected the cartilaginous extract that would hasten the healing of Biron’s tom ligaments, and already the pain in his knee was barely noticeable, but then that was only physical pain, anyway. It could be ignored.

  He felt the inner disturbance that meant the ship had Jumped and then the worst time came.

  Earlier he had felt his own analysis to be correct. It had to be. But what if he were wrong? What if they were now at the very heart of rebellion? The information would go streaking back to Tyrann and the armada would gather. And he himself would die knowing that he might have saved the rebellion, but had risked death to ruin it.

  It was during that dark time that he thought of the document again. The document he had once failed to get.

  Strange the way the notion of the document came and went. It would be mentioned, and then forgotten. There was a mad, intensive search for the rebellion world and yet no search at all for the mysterious vanished document.

  Was the emphasis being misplaced?

  It occurred to Biron then that Aratap was willing to come upon the rebellion world with a single ship. What was that confidence he had? Could he dare a planet with a ship?

  The Autarch had said the document had vanished years
before, but then who had it?

  The Tyranni, perhaps. They might have a document the secret of which would allow one ship to destroy a world.

  If that were true, what did it matter where the rebellion world was, or if it existed at all.

  Time passed and then Aratap entered. Biron rose to his feet.

  Aratap said, “We have reached the star in question. There is a star there. The co-ordinates given us by the Autarch were correct.”

  “Well?”

  “But there is no need to inspect it for planets. The star, I am told by my astrogators, was a nova less than a million years ago. If it had planets then, they were destroyed. It is a white dwarf now. It can have no planets.”

  Biron stared. “Then–”

  Aratap said, “So you are right. There is no rebellion world.”

  Twenty-Two: There!

  ALL OF ARATAP’S philosophy could not completely wipe out the feeling of regret within him. For a while he had not been himself, but his father over again. He, too, these last weeks had been leading a squadron of ships against the enemies of the Khan.

  But these were degenerate days, and where there might have been a rebellion world, there was none. There were no enemies of the Khan after all; no worlds to gain. He remained only a Commissioner, still condemned to the soothing of little troubles. No more.

  Yet regret was a useless emotion. It accomplished nothing.

  He said, “So you are right. There is no rebellion world.”

  He sat down and motioned Biron into a seat as well. “I want to talk to you.”

  The young man was staring solemnly at him, and Aratap found himself gently amazed that they had met first less than a month ago. The boy was older now, far more than a month older, and he had lost his fear. Aratap thought to himself, I am growing completely decadent. How many of us are beginning to like individuals among our subjects? How many of us wish them well?

  He said, “I am going to release the Director and his daughter. Naturally, it is the politically intelligent thing to do. In fact, it is politically inevitable. I think, though, that I will release them now and send them back on the Remorseless. Would you care to pilot them?”

  Biron said, “Are you freeing me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “You saved my ship, and my life as well.”

  “I doubt that personal gratitude would influence your actions in matters of state.”

  Aratap was within a hair of laughing outright. He did like the boy. “Then I’ll give you another reason. As long as I was tracking a giant conspiracy against the Khan, you were dangerous. When that giant conspiracy failed to materialize, when all I had was a Linganian cabal of which the leader is dead: you were no longer dangerous. In fact, it would be dangerous to try either you or the Linganian captives.

  “The trials would be in Linganian courts and therefore not under our full control. They would inevitably involve discussion of the so-called rebellion world. And though there is none, half the subjects of Tyrann would think there might be one after all, that where there was such a deal of drumming, there must be a drum. We would have given them a concept to rally round, a reason for revolt, a hope for the future. The Tyrannian realm would not be free of rebellion this side of a century.”

  “Then you free us all?”

  “It will not be exactly freedom, since none of you is exactly loyal. We will deal with Lingane in our own way, and the next Autarch will find himself bound by closer ties to the Khanate. It will be no longer an Associated State, and trials involving Linganians will not necessarily be tried in Linganian courts hereafter. Those involved in the conspiracy, including those in our hands now, will be exiled to worlds nearer Tyrann, where they will be fairly harmless. You yourself cannot return to Nephelos and need not expect to be restored to your Ranch. You will stay on Rhodia, along with Colonel Rizzett.”

  “Good enough, “said Biron, “but what of the Lady Artemisia’s marriage?”

  “You wish it stopped?”

  “You must know that we would like to marry each other. You said once there might be some way of stopping the Tyrannian affair.”

  “At the time I said that I was trying to accomplish something. What is the old saying? ‘The lies of lovers and diplomats shall be forgiven them.’”

  “But there is a way, Commissioner. It need only be pointed out to the Khan that when a powerful courtier would marry into an important subject family, it may be motives of ambition that lead him on. A subject revolt may be led by an ambitious Tyrannian as easily as by an ambitious Linganian.”

  Aratap did laugh this time. “You reason like one of us. But it wouldn’t work. Would you want my advice?”

  “What would it be?”

  “Marry her yourself, quickly. A thing once done would be difficult to undo under the circumstances. We would find another woman for Pohang.”

  Biron hesitated. Then he put out a hand. “Thank you, sir.”

  Aratap took it. “I don’t like Pohang particularly, anyway. Still, there is one thing further for you to remember. Don’t let ambition mislead you. Though you marry the Director’s daughter, you will never yourself be Director. You are not the type we want.”

  Aratap watched the shrinking Remorseless in the visiplate and was glad the decision had been made. The young man was free; a message was already on its way to Tyrann through the sub-ether. Major Andros would undoubtedly swell into apoplexy, and there would not be wanting men at court to demand his recall as Commissioner.

  If necessary, he would travel to Tyrann. Somehow he would see the Khan and make him listen. Given all the facts, the King of Kings would see plainly that no other course of action was possible, and thereafter he could defy any possible combination of enemies.

  The Remorseless was only a gleaming dot now, scarcely distinguishable from the stars that were beginning to surround it now that they were emerging from the Nebula.

  Rizzett watched the shrinking Tyrannian flagship in the visiplate. He said, “So the man let us got You know, if the Tyranni were all like him, damned if I wouldn’t join their fleet. It upsets me in a way. I have definite notions of what Tyranni are like, and he doesn’t fit. Do you suppose he can hear what we say?”

  Biron set the automatic controls and swiveled in the pilot’s seat. “No. Of course not. He can follow us through hyperspace as he did before, but I don’t think he can put a spy beam on us. You remember that when he first captured us all he knew about us was what he overheard on the fourth planet. No more.”

  Artemisia stepped into the pilot room, her finger on her lips. “Not too loudly,” she said. “I think he’s sleeping now. It won’t be long before we reach Rhodia, will it, Biron?”

  “We can do it in one Jump, Arta. Aratap had it calculated for us.”

  Rizzett said, “I’ve got to wash my hands.”

  They watched him leave, and then she was in Biron’s arms. He kissed her lightly on forehead and eyes, then found her lips as his arms tensed about her. The kiss came to a lingering and breathless end. She said, “I love you very much,” and he said, “I love you more than I can say.” The conversation that followed was both as unoriginal as that and as satisfying.

  Biron said after a while, “Will he marry us before we land?”

  Artemisia frowned a little. “I tried to explain that he’s Director and captain of the ship and that there are no Tyranni here. I don’t know though. He’s quite upset. He’s not himself at all, Biron. After he’s rested, I’ll try again.”

  Biron laughed softly. “Don’t worry. He’ll be persuaded.”

  Rizzett’s footsteps were noisy as he returned. He said, “I wish we still had the trailer. There isn’t room here to take a deep breath.”

  Biron said, “We’ll be on Rhodia in a matter of hours. We’ll be Jumping soon.”

  “I know.” Rizzett scowled. “And we’ll stay on Rhodia till we die. Not that I’m complaining overloud; I’m glad I’m alive. But it’s a silly end to it all.”
r />   “There hasn’t been any ending,” said Biron softly.

  Rizzett looked up. “You mean we can start allover? No, I don’t think so. You can, perhaps, but not I. I’m too old and there’s nothing left for me. Lingane will be dragged into line and I’ll never see it again. That bothers me most of all, I think. I was born there and lived there all my life. I won’t be but half a man anywhere else. You’re young; you’ll forget Nephelos.”

  “There’s more to life than a home planet, Tedor. It’s been our great shortcoming in the past centuries that we’ve been unable to recognize that fact. All planets are our home planets.”

  “Maybe. Maybe. If there had been a rebellion world, why, then, it might have been so.”

  “There is a rebellion world, Tedor.”

  Rizzett said sharply, “I’m in no mood for that, Biron.”

  “I’m not telling a lie. There is such a world and I know its location. I might have known it weeks ago, and so might anyone in our party. The facts were all there. They were knocking at my mind without being able to get in until that moment on the fourth planet when you and I had beat down Jonti. Do you remember him standing there, saying that we would never find the fifth planet without his help? Do you remember his words?”

  “Exactly? No.”

  “I think I do. He said, ‘There is an average of seventy cubic light-years per star. If you work by trial and error, without me, the odds are two hundred and fifty quadrillion to one against your coming within a billion miles of any star. Any star!’ It was at that moment, I think, that the facts got into my mind. I could feel the click.”

  “Nothing clicks in my mind,” said Rizzett. “Suppose you explain a bit.”

  Artemisia said, “I don’t see what you can mean, Biron.”

  Biron said, “Don’t you see that it is exactly those odds which Gillbret is supposed to have defeated? You remember his story. The meteor hit, deflected his ship’s course, and at the end of its Jumps, it was actually within a stellar system. That could have happened only by a coincidence so incredible as to be not worth any belief.”