King David's Spaceship (codominion)

by Jerry Pournelle

  “There were a few barbarians,” Nathan said.

  “Yes.” He read more. “No superior weapons—”

  “Of course not. Look, we. were inspected when we landed on Makassar.”

  “I know.”

  What else do you know? MacKinnie wondered. “What’s the problem?”

  “Just wondering if tactical innovations come within the limits of the technology transfer laws,” Jefferson said. “Well, that’s not my business. If the Makassar garrison didn’t have a complaint there’s no reason for me to raise the question.” The frown faded and he smiled at MacKinnie. “Forgot to say it. Welcome home.”

  * * *

  There was a large crowd outside, with a dozen reporters in front. They all shouted questions at once. Then, suddenly, they fell silent.

  Inspector Solon came through the crowd. His black uniform opened a way as if by magic. “Welcome back, Trader. Freelady. Gentlemen.” His voice was cold even though his smile was broad. He turned to the crowd. “His Majesty requests that he be given the first interview,” Solon said. “Surely that is reasonable? You will all have your opportunities, but I am commanded to bring the members of the expedition to the palace.”

  There were murmurs from the reporters, but no one actually protested. Solon led them across the broad avenue to waiting steam cars. “We will go directly to the palace,” he said.

  It was as if Stark had come up behind him. Nathan heard him as clearly as if he’d been there. “Bets on our ever gettin’ out of there alive, Colonel? That guy gives me the creeps. So does his boss.”

  There were three cars. “Trader, you and Freelady Graham and our scholars will ride in the first car with me,” Solon said. He held open the door.

  Nathan and Mary climbed into the vehicle. It was new, a model he hadn’t seen before, and the interior was luxurious. When they were inside, Solon handed each a sheet of paper.

  “SPEAK ONLY PLEASANTRIES. DO NOT DISCUSS THE EXPEDITION UNTIL YOU ARE TOLD IT IS SAFE.”

  MacKinnie read it and nodded. Solon waited until each one acknowledged the message, then collected the papers and put them in his pouch. “Was it a pleasant journey?” he asked conversationally.

  “Return trip was dull,” MacKinnie said.

  “Yes,” Mary said. “There were no other passengers. Just three young naval officers, and they stayed forward in the crew area. We were left to our own devices.”

  “Not like the trip out,” Longway said. “The Navy craft we returned on had few luxuries. Not even windows to look out of.”

  Kleinst had been silent. Now he said wistfully, “I saw Prince Samual’s World from space when we left. Magnificent! And Makassar when we arrived there. Worlds so different — I think of what we could learn about weather and climate by observing different worlds from space. It is no wonder the Imperials are able to predict weather accurately. They know so much—”

  Solon gestured with an upraised palm. “I’m certain they do,” he said. “Well! You will have much to tell His Majesty.”

  MacKinnie glanced back through the rear window. The other cars were following. “The Navy released our cargo,” he said. “Arrangements must be made to move it—”

  “At once,” Solon said. “When we reach the palace I will go myself. Thank you.”

  The palace was hidden in a maze of scaffolding. That, too, was new. They were taken inside, and quickly led to the living quarters in the rear of the building. “I am sure you will wish to wash and change your clothing,” Solon said. He gave them more papers with instructions.

  MacKinnie nodded agreement.

  The clothes were his own, but they felt too large. As he had expected, there were no weapons. He dressed quickly and followed the guide upstairs to a small sitting room.

  Malcolm Dougal was alone in the room. He stood when MacKinnie entered, and his smile of welcome seemed genuine. “So. You returned,” Dougal said. “Were you successful?”

  “You’ll pardon my suspicions, but where are the others?” MacKinnie asked.

  Dougal frowned and looked genuinely puzzled. “Changing their clothing, of course — ah. You are concerned because I had Inspector Solon bring you here? How else could I have extracted you from that crowd?”

  “We were told we would be meeting King David.”

  “As you will, when all are ready,” Dougal said. “Your guardsmen will not be needed. They will be entertained by some of my men.”

  “Entertained how?”

  “With whatever they want,” Dougal said. “Why are you so suspicious? Are you expecting punishment? Did the mission fail?”

  “Not exactly. But I’ve been wondering what you had in mind for us. You had a dozen people killed to protect your secret — and you don’t need me and my troopers any longer.”

  “That was then,” Dougal said. “Since you left there are many who know our plans. We’ve had no choice but to tell them. As a matter of fact, two of your former officers are now part of the security force at our research station.

  Which is what I had in mind for you and the guardsmen. You disappoint me, Colonel. I am neither bloodthirsty nor evil. Simply determined not to fail. Now, what success have you brought me?”

  MacKinnie spread his hands. “I honestly don’t know. We secured the library, and Kleinst read a number of the old books. We made copies of many of them — but Kleinst wasn’t sure we could make them readable with anything we have on Prince Samual’s World. And once we left Batav — that’s the city the old library was in — we couldn’t discuss any of this among ourselves. Too many locals aboard our ship. It was worse when we got the Navy’s base at Jikar, and on that spaceship. I thought Kleinst was going to burst for lack of someone to talk to.”

  “I see. And you don’t know if we can build a ship?”

  “I know damned well we can’t build anything’ like their ships,” MacKinnie said. “Dougal, you can’t imagine what their equipment is like. Even the library. A box no larger than that sideboard there — we were told that could contain every book on Prince Samual’s World with room to spare. The things we brought home are about this big.” MacKinnie held up thumb and forefinger to indicate the size. “And each one holds a whole library. If we can read them.”

  “So you learned nothing?”

  “It wasn’t my job to learn,” MacKinnie said. “I was hired to get them there and bring them back. I did. All but two guardsmen.”

  “So we must rely on Kleinst.”

  “Kleinst and Todd. They spent days in the library. Not as long as they’d have liked to, but I didn’t dare wait any longer before starting back. As it was we only had five days to spare before the ship left, and I gather there won’t be another for a while. Something strange is going on in another part of the Empire. They wouldn’t tell me what, but they take it seriously.”

  “Indeed?” Dougal looked thoughtful. “We will have to see if we can find out,” he said. “It may affect us.”

  He’s a good liar, MacKinnie thought. But he knows something he’s not telling me. I wonder if it’s important …

  “As for this audience,” Dougal said, “there will be many present who know nothing about your true purpose in going to Makassar, and we suspect the Imperials can listen to conversations in the audience chamber. You will continue the pretense of a simple trading mission.”

  “You didn’t even tell the king?” MacKinnie demanded.

  Dougal laughed. “His Majesty knows all,” he said. “But many in the government do not. We intend to keep it that way. Come, let’s get this over with. I am anxious to talk to all of you, and I will not feel really comfortable until we are out of Haven.”

  “Where are you taking us?”

  “We have a large military research post in the Corliss Grant Hills,” Dougal said. “Most of what goes on there is weapons research, which the Imperials know all about. But it is a large place, and much goes on that we do not tell them.”

  “I see. You’ve organized well,” MacKinnie said.

  �
�As best we could. But now it all depends on what you have brought us. And we are running out of time.”

  * * *

  Their quarters in the Corliss Grant research station were comfortable, but they were prisoners.

  “I prefer you do not think that way,” Dougal told MacKinnie. “You have weapons. You are all housed in the same building. All of you, including your soldiers. From time to time one of you — I prefer Academician Longway, he has a knack for talking — will go to Haven to be seen and speak to the press. But think, Colonel. You will be recognized if you are seen often. And if there is no one to tell your secrets to, you will not reveal them.” He threw up his hands as if in dismay. “I have given you every possible assurance of your safety. I make no doubt that with your skill and the number of men I have left you, you could escape at any time. I rely on your word, Colonel. You have sworn loyalty to Haven and Prince Samual’s World. Can I not trust you?”

  There wasn’t any answer to that, as MacKinnie later told Mary.

  “So we’re our own jailors,” she said.

  “It comes to that,” MacKinnie said. “He even has me in the security department. I don’t really blame him. I’d do the same thing myself. But as Hal would say, this spy business gets old pretty fast.” He tried to laugh, but the sound was unpleasant.

  “Are you sorry?” she asked.

  “Sorry I lost Hal? I’ll always be sorry.”

  She moved closer to him, and he held her, clinging to her. They stood for a long time. Finally he let her go. “But I’m not sorry I found you. Which reminds me, I have to speak to your father—”

  “No.”

  He frowned. “What do you mean, ‘no’?”

  “You don’t have to do anything,” she said. “That’s not what either of us wants. Haven is ruled by customs and duties — we don’t need them with each other.”

  He was silent for a moment. “All right, let’s say I want to speak to your father. It’s time I made an honest woman of you-”

  “Or an honest man of yourself.”

  * * *

  They lived in luxury, but there was nothing to do. The research station was isolated, far from any town, sealed from the rest of Prince Samual’s World, and keeping it “secure” required no effort at all.

  Since no one objected, Nathan went to technical conferences. Much of the discussion involved forces, and specific impulse, and other meaningless terms. He did understand that Kleinst had no way of reading the cubes they had brought back.

  “It’s enough to drive me mad,” Kleinst said. A dozen older engineers seated around the conference table nodded sympathy. “It’s all right here.” He held up one of the small plasticine cubes. “And if I had nothing else to do, I might, in ten years, be able to read this. I know the theory-”

  “We’re working on it,” Academician Taylor said. Taylor headed a group who worked on long-distance communicators and other electrical matters. They thought they had a method of reading the Makassar data, but so far it had not worked.

  “But I have to spend time on the ship also,” Kleinst said. “And I fear that is hopeless.”

  “We’ve got your liquid oxygen,” Todd said. He looked pleased with himself, and MacKinnie thought he had a right to be. In his days in the library on Makassar, Todd had found books on ancient technology — methods ancient even in the days of the First Empire — and studied how they’d done things. MacKinnie had never thought of air as something that could be made liquid, but Todd had done it by putting oxygen under high pressure, then rapidly letting it expand and cool. It all seemed simple once it was done-

  “Yes,” Kleinst said. “But we can’t build pumps. And the stabilizing mechanisms.” He shook his head sadly. “We have large gyroscopes, but every attempt to make small ones with electrical connections to guide the ship has failed. Everything we can make is large, too large—”

  “In time we can make it smaller,” Douglas Starr said.

  “Time is what we don’t have,” MacKinnie said.

  Starr glared at him. “My mechanics are working themselves to death now. I can get no more from them. There are no more hours in the day!”

  “I know. I meant no disrespect,” MacKinnie said. And I shouldn’t even be here. But what else do I have to do? Every day he examined the political maps. Haven’s reach extended far to the east, all the way to the eastern ocean. In one memorable four-day period seven city-states capitulated to King David. One large kingdom on the eastern coast of the continent was holding out, and even though it looked as if it would take only a short campaign to conquer it, MacKinnie had asked for a command in Haven’s army. Of course Dougal refused to consider his request.

  “Go back to first principles,” Todd said. “We can’t build true spacecraft. We can’t even build anything like the Empire’s landing boats.”

  “So we must build rockets,” Kleinst said. “And large liquid rockets are very complex—”

  “Why rockets?” Todd asked.

  Kleinst frowned. “What else is there?”

  “It largely depends on what you mean by a spaceship,” the midshipman said. “Or rather, what the Empire will accept as a spaceship …”

  “If it will take us to space, it is a spaceship,” Kleinst muttered. “We have no time for senseless debate on definitions. What have you in mind?”

  “There was an ancient document,” Todd said. “I hesitate to say how ancient—” He saw the intense interest of the others and laughed self-consciously. “Before the second millennium of the Christian era,” he said. “In the time of the first spacecraft, on Earth.”

  There was a long silence. Earth, MacKinnie thought. Before the Empire, before the CoDominium, before space travel. Those times were no more than legends, yet Todd had seen copies of works written then.

  “The first spacecraft used rockets,” Kleinst said firmly.

  “Yes, but they had another concept,” Todd said. “It was not used, but it might have been. And it is something we can build …”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  WITNESS

  Lieutenant Jefferson tapped nervously at the door to High Commissioner Ackoff’s office. Jeff could think of no reason why the Imperial governor would want to see him. In the past few months he’d worked on a dozen assignments, all routine and all dull, and as far as Jefferson knew he’d done them all satisfactorily; Ackoff couldn’t be unhappy with him. On the other hand, he’d done nothing outstanding either. Jeff didn’t like economic intelligence work, and longed for a space assignment.

  “Come.”

  Commissioner Ackoff’s office might have been used as a textbook example: office, one each, governor’s, minor colonial planet. There was the large wooden desk and leather chairs; conference table and more chairs; conversation group with couch and soft chairs off to one side; computer screens and input console discreetly hidden in the desk; portrait of the Emperor draped with the flags of Empire; shelves of curios including models of ships Ackoff had served in; large sideboard filled with liquor—

  Ackoff was seated at his conference table. So was Captain Greenaugh.

  “Come in, Jefferson,” Ackoff said. “Have a seat.”

  “Thank you, Your Excellency—”

  “Haven’t seen you for a while,” Sir Alexei said. “I miss those government seminars. Really ought to start them up again. Only time I get to meet my officers.” The

  Commissioner shook his head slowly. “Too much work, no one to do it. I’m afraid we’ve an additional job for you.”

  “Sir?” Jeff looked to Greenaugh for some hint of what was happening.

  “Not in space,” Greenaugh said. He laughed at Jefferson’s expression. “Tired of this place already? I’m told you’re practically engaged to a local girl—”

  “Not yet, sir. “Jeff was emphatic.

  “But you still see her,” Greenaugh said. It wasn’t a question.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Quite often.”

  “Yes, sir,” Jeff said. Often, and the rel
ationship was certainly one that Elaine might take as “practically engaged.” Certainly her father had a right to think so. The less said about that the better.

  “Not trying to pry into your private affairs,” Greenaugh said. “But I take it you do not intend to apply for transfer to the civil service.”

  “No, sir,” Jeff said. “I’m ready for space duty whenever there’s an assignment—”

  Greenaugh chuckled. “And you’d like to know when that will be. So would we all, Lieutenant. So would we all. But I’m afraid not even Sir Alexei knows that. Meanwhile, we’ve a job to do here. Know anything about Haven’s military research establishment?”

  “Well, a little-”

  “A lot, I’d say,” Ackoff interrupted. “It was your economic analysis that got us interested. Haven has a big research station in the Corliss Grant Hills. From what we can see it siphons off a good part of their budget and a lot of their technical talent. We can’t think why.”

  “Any ideas?” Greenaugh asked.

  “Not really, sir,” Jefferson said. “Frankly, I can’t see any need for a big military research effort. Haven has just finished the consolidation of this continent, which effectively means the whole planet. They’d have finished the job sooner if they hadn’t dragged their feet. They’ve no one to fight.”

  “Precisely,” Greenaugh said. “Which is what disturbs us. One, they did drag their feet. From what we know of their history, unification of the planet has been Haven’s dream since the present dynasty took over. We gave them the chance to do it, and they went very slowly. Then all of a sudden they speeded things up and finished with a bang. Two, they’re spending a lot of money and sending the cream of their engineering talent to a military research station that’s working on weapons they’ll never need. Quickfiring cannon. War rockets — big ones, too; Tombaugh’s radar tracked one six hundred kilometers. Balloons, for Christ’s sake. And that’s just what they tell us about. What else are they doing out there?”