Vall aimed for the Assassin's belt-buckleand squeezed. The bullet caught him in the throat. Evidently thebullet had not only been lifted in the negative gravitation, butlifted point-first and deflected upward. He held his front sight justabove the other man's knee, and hit him in the chest.
As he fired, he saw a wisp of gas come sliding around the edge of theinverted table. There was silence outside, and for an instant, he wastempted to abandon his post and go to the bathroom, back of thebedroom, for wet towels to improvise a mask. Then, when he tried tocrawl backward, he could not. There was an impression of distantshouting which turned to a roaring sound in his head. He tried to lifthis pistol, but it slipped from his fingers.
* * * * *
When consciousness returned, he was lying on his back, and somethingcold and rubbery was pressing into his face. He raised his arms tofight off whatever it was, and opened his eyes, to find that he wasstaring directly at the red oval and winged bullet of the Society ofAssassins. A hand caught his wrist as he reached for the small pistolunder his arm. The pressure on his face eased.
"It's all right, Lord Virzal," a voice came to him. "Assassins'Truce!"
He nodded stupidly and repeated the words. "Assassins' Truce; I won'tshoot. What happened?"
Then he sat up and looked around. Prince Jirzyn's bedchamber was fullof Assassins. Dalla, recovering from her touch of sleep-gas, wassitting groggily in a chair, while five or six of them fussed aroundher, getting in each others' way, handing her drinks, chaffing herwrists, holding damp cloths on her brow. That was standard procedure,when any group of males thought Dalla needed any help. AnotherAssassin, beside the bed, was putting away an oxygen-mask outfit, andthe Assassin who had prevented Verkan Vall from drawing his pistol washis own follower, Marnik. And Klarnood, the Assassin-President, wassitting on the foot of the bed, smoking one of Prince Jirzyn'smonogrammed and crested cigarettes critically.
Verkan Vall looked at Marnik, and then at Klarnood, and back toMarnik.
"You got through," he said. "Good work, Marnik; I thought they'ddowned you."
"They did; I had to crash-land in the woods. I went about a mile onfoot, and then I found a man and woman and two children, hiding in oneof these little log rain shelters. They had an airboat, a good one. Itseemed that rioting had broken out in the city unit where they lived,and they'd taken to the woods till things quieted down again. Ioffered them Assassins' protection if they'd take me to Assassins'Hall, and they did."
"By luck, I was in when Marnik arrived," Klarnood took over. "Webrought three boatloads of men, and came here at once. Just as we gothere, two boatloads of Starpha dependents arrived; they tried to giveus an argument, and we discarnated the lot of them. Then we came downhere, crying Assassins' Truce. One of the Starpha Assassins, Kirzol,was still carnate; he told us what had been going on." ThePresident-General's face-became grim. "You know, I take a rather poorview of Prince Jirzyn's procedure in this matter, not to mention thatof his underlings. I'll have to speak to him about this. Now, howabout you and the Lady Dallona? What do you intend doing?"
"We're getting out of here," Verkan Vall said. "I'd like air transportand protection as far as Ghamma, to the establishment of the family ofZorda. Brarnend of Zorda has a private space yacht; he'll get us toVenus."
Klarnood gave a sigh of obvious relief. "I'll have you and the LadyDallona airborne and off for Ghamma as soon as you wish," he promised."I will, frankly, be delighted to see the last of both of you. TheLady Dallona has started a fire here at Darsh that won't burn out in ahalf-century, and who knows what it may consume." He was interruptedby a heaving shock that made the underground dome dwelling shake likea light airboat in turbulence. Even eighty feet under the ground, theycould hear a continued crashing roar. It was an appreciable intervalbefore the sound and the shock ceased.
For an instant, there was silence, and then an excited bedlam ofshouting broke from the Assassins in the room: Klarnood's face wasfrozen in horror.
"That was a fission bomb!" he exclaimed. "The first one that has beenexploded on this planet in hostility in a thousand years!" He turnedto Verkan Vall. "If you feel well enough to walk, Lord Virzal, comewith us. I must see what's happened."
They hurried from the room and went streaming up the ascent tube tothe top of the dome. About forty miles away, to the south, Verkan Vallsaw the sinister thing that he had seen on so many other time-lines,in so many other paratime sectors--a great pillar of varicoloredfire-shot smoke, rising to a mushroom head fifty thousand feet above.
"Well, that's it," Klarnood said sadly. "That is civil war."
"May I make a suggestion, Assassin-President?" Verkan Vall asked. "Iunderstand that Assassins' Truce is binding even upon non-Assassins;is that correct?"
"Well, not exactly; it's generally kept by such non-Assassins as wantto remain in their present reincarnations, though."
"That's what I meant. Well, suppose you declare a general, planet-wideAssassins' Truce in this political war, and make the leaders of bothparties responsible for keeping it. Publish lists of the top two orthree thousand Statisticalists and Volitionalists, starting withMirzark of Bashad and Prince Jirzyn of Starpha, and inform them thatthey will be assassinated, in order, if the fighting doesn't cease."
"Well!" A smile grew on Klarnood's face. "Lord Virzal, my thanks; agood suggestion. I'll try it. And furthermore, I'll withdraw allAssassin protection permanently from anybody involved in politicalactivity, and forbid any Assassin to accept any retainer connectedwith political factionalism. It's about time our members stoppeddiscarnating each other in these political squabbles." He pointed tothe three airboats drawn up on the top of the dome; speedy blackcraft, bearing the red oval and winged bullet. "Take your choice, LordVirzal. I'll lend you a couple of my men, and you'll be in Ghamma inthree hours." He hooked fingers and clapped shoulders with VerkanVall, bent over Dalla's hand. "I still like you, Lord Virzal, and Ihave seldom met a more charming lady than you, Lady Dallona. But Isincerely hope I never see either of you again."
* * * * *
The ship for Dhergabar was driving north and west; at seventy thousandfeet, it was still daylight, but the world below was wrapping itselfin darkness. In the big visiscreens, which served in lieu of thewindows which could never have withstood the pressure and frictionheat of the ship's speed, the sun was sliding out of sight over thehorizon to port. Verkan Vall and Dalla sat together, watching theblazing western sky--the sky of their own First Level time-line.
"I blame myself terribly, Vall," Dalla was saying. "And I didn't meanany of them the least harm. All I was interested in was learning thefacts. I know, that sounds like 'I didn't know it was loaded,' but--"
"It sounds to me like those Fourth Level Europo-American Sectorphysicists who are giving themselves guilt-complexes because theydesigned an atomic bomb," Verkan Vall replied. "All you wereinterested in was learning the facts. Well, as a scientist, that's allyou're supposed to be interested in. You don't have to worry about anysocial or political implications. People have to learn to live withnewly-discovered facts; if they don't, they die of them."
"But, Vall; that sounds dreadfully irresponsible--"
"Does it? You're worrying about the results of your reincarnationmemory-recall discoveries, the shootings and riotings and the bombingwe saw." He touched the pommel of Olirzon's knife, which he stillwore. "You're no more guilty of that than the man who forged thisblade is guilty of the death of Marnark of Bashad; if he'd neverlived, I'd have killed Marnark with some other knife somebody elsemade. And what's more, you can't know the results of your discoveries.All you can see is a thin film of events on the surface of animmediate situation, so you can't say whether the long-term resultswill be beneficial or calamitous.
"Take this Fourth Level Europo-American atomic bomb, for example. Ichoose that because we both know that sector, but I could think of ahundred other examples in other paratime areas. Those people, becauseof deforestation, bad agricultural methods and g
eneral mismanagement,are eroding away their arable soil at an alarming rate. At the sametime, they are breeding like rabbits. In other words, each successivegeneration has less and less food to divide among more and morepeople, and, for inherited traditional and superstitious reasons, theyrefuse to adopt any rational program of birth-control andpopulation-limitation.
"But, fortunately, they now have the atomic bomb, and they aredeveloping radioactive poisons, weapons of mass-effect. And theirracial, nationalistic and ideological
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