by Colin Kapp
The guard who had left the chamber to investigate the thunder returned to the door and stopped in amazement. He took one look at the death and confusion and raised his weapon with the intention of killing the marshal, whom he believed to be responsible. A command from outside the door in Zecol’s voice cried an urgent prohibition. Nevertheless, the man with the weapon turned his head in protest and fired. The weapon exploded spitefully in his face, and he dropped out of sight leaving the entrance spattered with gore. Then Zecol appeared and stood still, fearful of crossing the threshold. His eyes were very grave as he attempted to comprehend what had taken place.
“For a bound man, Marshal, you have the most remarkable powers of destruction.” Kasdeya had to conquer his own amazement in order to translate Zecol’s words.
“Ah,” said Wildheit. “You should see the damage I can do with my hands free!”
As if to emphasize the point, the yoke across his back abruptly shattered, leaving the fastenings around his arms looking like bangles. The eyebolts to which his feet were secured were torn from the deck so abruptly that pieces flew to the far corners of the chamber, yet the links of the chain which had held his ankles tumbled separately to the floor each still individually intact. During all this activity, the marshal did not appear to move a muscle.
“Was that demonstration sufficient?” he asked Zecol. “Or do you want some more?”
Zecol’s scowl was a mask of thunder, yet his voice was subdued. “I think you’ve made your point, Marshal. What manner of creature are you?”
“As I said, Commander, I represent both your progenitors and your successors. I am one of the golden beasts that torment your history—past, present, and future.”
Shaking his head, Zecol led the way back to the large, white chamber and stood with his back against the table instead of sitting behind it. The guards around the chamber’s edge fidgeted with their weapons, but this time did not take aim. News of the fate of their colleague who had tried to fire at the marshal had apparently already reached their ears. Wildheit studied the officer sagely for a few seconds.
“I take it that you are still not sufficiently convinced, Commander. Unwisely, you suspect some form of trickery, though you can’t detect how such magic could have been performed. How would you like to see another example—to demonstrate how far you are outclassed?”
“This is madness!”
“You have men skilled in unarmed combat?”
“Many of the best.”
“Then I suggest you summon three of them, to be opposed in a fight to the death—and call up fifty of your ship’s company to bear witness. Here’s your only chance to kill a growing legend.”
Zecol lifted his great head speculatively. “Three men to be opposed by you and your magic, Marshal? Is that the trap you set for me?”
“Not at all! I was proposing three of your men against one girl.”
Zecol’s eyes were deeply questioning. “I at least know she doesn’t have a space-marshal’s legendary defenses.” He glanced at the guards, who were listening with interest to the conversation while appearing not to do so. “And if I decline I shall apparently further the legend even more. I’ll call your bluff, Marshal. The fight shall be as you say—though I don’t see what you expect to gain from it.”
“Let’s say it’s a question of what you’ve got to lose, if three of your men can’t withstand one girl.” He turned to Roamer. “Are you happy with the arrangement?”
She met his gaze levelly and tried to maintain a passive face, but finished with the breakthrough of a smile.
“You’re a perceptive old devil, Marshal Jym.”
“I need to be, with the sort of company I keep.”
“Perceptive or not,” said Zecol, “this time you’ve overreached yourselves.”
He called a guard and gave a string of orders. Soon an assembly of Ra shipmen began to file in, their natural glee at this unexpected entertainment being partially inhibited by Zecol’s frowning presence. When the walls of the chamber were lined two-deep with men—Wildheit estimated that something like a hundred had contrived to attend—Zecol called in his champions. All were rippled and muscular yet with a lightness of foot that suggested practiced speed and precision. Each one was grinning and joking with the others about how they intended to ill-use the female golden beast before they killed her.
Roamer stood centrally on the low circular stage and watched them come, only her eyes showing the degree of her concentration, while her face remained serene. Something about her composure gave the men momentary pause. But Zecol barked an order, and they again continued their approach.
One took the initiative and dived onto the stage, making an elaborate gesture of grasping the girl, rather than trying a deliberate attack. It was a piece of idiocy for which he paid dearly. With a barely perceptible flow of movements, Roamer used his momentum destructively and took advantage of his incautious plunge to lift and twist him in the air then bring his body down over the angle of the edge of the stage. Paralyzed from a broken back, the fellow rolled over. His eyes became glassily inert. The intake of startled breaths was unanimous throughout the audience.
Critically alerted to their danger, the other two contenders instantly became serious. The game they had anticipated had lost its flavor, and the whole affair was unexpectedly converted into a matter of life and death. They held a brief consultation, then one advanced in an attitude prepared for attack. Watching him approach, Roamer seemed unprepared to offer any defense. He was not deceived, and placed himself perfectly before striking the single blow which should have killed her.
His savage chop met empty air. Then she was beside and behind and around him in a fantastic dance choreographed by an inspired anticipation of his intended movements. Baffled and bewildered by his inability to complete even a single telling jab, he grew angry and a little careless. Roamer eased his sanity over the edge with a series of little, stinging blows that he found no opportunity to return. Then she began to chop at him seriously, her purpose apparently being to cause as much damage as possible before she administered the coup de grace. Again and again he lashed out at her with hands intended to become increasingly more lethal, but each time she anticipated him by the merest fraction of a second. No matter how desperate he became he was able to inflict on her virtually no damage whatsoever.
In the meantime the one remaining contender was circling constantly, always attempting to stay behind Roamer and waiting for his opportunity to strike at her from the rear. The unfairness of these tactics provoked derogatory comments from his comrades lined up against the walls, but Roamer’s expert and deliberately prolonged demolition of the man she faced persuaded the man behind her that his tactics were justified despite the adverse opinions of his friends. Then suddenly he leaped in with a savage elbow blow intended to break her spine. In the flurry of action that ensued, nobody had a clear idea of the sequence of events. But at the finale one of her adversaries lay coughing up life-blood, while the other, his arms curiously disjointed, rushed headlong from the fight.
The roar of protest that rose from around the walls halted his flight, but a silence closed suddenly as Roamer held up her hand. Then, ignoring any barrier of language, she beckoned the would-be deserter with an expressive finger. Faced with the derision of his comrades if he fled from the female golden beast, or returning with broken arms to face almost certain destruction, the fellow halted in an agony of indecision. Something that his comrades shouted tipped the balance. With a look of hopeless resignation he walked unsteadily back toward Roamer. She danced a pirouette right round him before dislocating his neck with a single well-placed blow.
FOURTEEN
STANDING next to the marshal, Kasdeya’s face registered a mixture of relief and incredulity.
“I don’t understand you at all. Why did you make the chicken take such risks?” This was an accusation phrased as a question.
“The risks were slight, Kasdeya. Remember when she fought Gadreel, she did so
in the manner of the Ra. Therefore Dabria himself must have had a hand in her instruction. She knew what blows to give and to expect.”
“Yes, but a girl against three …”
“… was unfair, but not in the way you imagine. She has one great advantage none of the Ra possesses. She can read in advance the timing and position of each blow and can even detect the decision pulse which directs it. By comparison, the Ra she fought were blind men. Also, the Ra are killers only by virtue of their training, but with Roamer, it’s an instinct. One day I think she will try to kill even me.”
Commander Zecol, his brow clouded with anger, seized Wildheit by the arm. To do so he had to force his way through the crowd of shipmen and technicians who had been brought to witness the fight and who were now engaged in a vociferous argument, with much sympathy and admiration being expressed for the golden beastess.
“Marshal, collect the girl and follow me. I have things to say.”
Wildheit signaled for Roamer to join them. Several guards fell in behind, but Zecol waved them away impatiently and strode through the decks at a furious pace, with the marshal, the seer, and Kasdeya trailing behind. Entering a large and well-appointed cabin, the commander slammed the door behind them, then turned angrily to Wildheit.
“Let’s come to an understanding, Marshal. You may have some protective spirit, but I am sure that killing you is not impossible. Don’t tempt me to try it. According to our Chaos calculations, the pair of you form the most powerful catalyst yet known. I can personally testify that your influence is totally out of proportion to your number. But that individual edge is all you have. All this talk of golden beasts is but a lie, mere fabrication.”
“Believe what you must,” said Wildheit. “But I’ll guarantee the legend runs stronger among the lower echelons on this ship. Every culture has a secret affection for its own devils, because individuals can never succeed in matching up to their own saints.”
“Aha!” Zecol was on the point instantly. “I thought I smelled sociological training. But you’ve created a problem for me. You’ve infected my security guard with superstition and undermined the discipline by which I command this ship, Marshal. You’re a disruptive influence that I cannot tolerate, yet one I am loath to destroy because we’ve much work to do in countering the effect of your catalysis.”
“Quite a dilemma,” said Wildheit.
“Indeed! But one I’ll soon resolve. I had intended to examine your catalysis aboard this ship. Instead, you’ll be transferred to a Chaos research station, where the maintenance of space discipline is less important. If you cooperate, you might manage to survive the ordeal. But offer any more tricks like those we’ve seen today, and I’ll destroy you, catalysis or not. I warn you, Marshal, stay in this room and don’t try any more pantomimes, or else I’ll personally supervise your conversion into space-garbage.”
He went out again, slamming and locking the door behind him. Wildheit shrugged and began to prowl around the cabin on a tour of exploration.
“I told you things were going my way, Kasdeya.”
“I’d be happier if I knew what your way was. The Ra aren’t the only ones who’ve had a few shocks today. Still, I doubt if many prisoners wind up quartered in the commander’s cabin. That’s a measure of the impression you’ve made on Zecol. But I’d love to hear him trying to refute a charge of pandering to the golden beasts.”
Wildheit was examining a desk, on the top of which he had found an inset cube which reminded him of a viewing screen.
“Can you work this thing, Kasdeya?”
The Ra renegade examined it dourly. “Complex—but the instruction symbols are plain enough. What were you hoping to see?”
“I wonder if this set has access to the images on the navigation screens. I’d like to know where they’re going to drop us off.”
“We entered the trans-continuum junction, for sure, but we didn’t make the reverse transition out the other side. At a guess, we’re still somewhere between the two continua. Our best information to date suggests we’re to be set down at a space station of sorts.”
“How did you arrive at that conclusion?”
“Zecol specifically spoke about putting us down somewhere where the maintenance of space discipline was less important. That suggests to me a secure space-environment rather than a planetary installation.”
During the conversation, Kasdeya had been working on the controls located beneath the cube. He was able to get a number of images apparently taken by cameras within the ship, and then he broke into a bank of ciphered information which was presumably a data link. Finally he began to find empty frames which peripheral information told him were scanner pictures of the empty wastes of the trans-continuum domain.
“Nothing to see yet, but that doesn’t mean to say there’s nothing there. A space station’s a remarkably small item when set in the midst of infinity.”
“How can the junction be infinite when it has a boundary?”
“Penemue could explain that to you better than I. The only answer I can give is that its limits are defined by velocity, not by dimensions. It’s the queerest sort of place.”
Wildheit sat behind the desk watching the vacant screen and trying to comprehend the realities of the situation out of the cryptic ciphers which swarmed around the picture’s edge. Though no movement at all was visible, in his imagination the great ship was plunging with furious velocity toward some point yet too distant to be seen. Occasionally he thought he detected a minute splint of light against the otherwise featureless background displayed on the surface of the cube, but this always proved to be an illusion. The exercise proved almost hypnotic. Being comfortably seated in the chair, his attention began to wander, until finally he drifted off into a light sleep.
He was awakened by the clamor of call signals sounding throughout the ship. As his eyes came into focus he sat bolt upright and called the others to him.
“Roamer, Kasdeya—come and see where we’re headed.”
They scrambled over to see before them on the screen the fantastic array of the Chaos Weapon, itself. Its detail became clearer every second as the ship headed for a close parking position.
“What a stroke of luck!”
“Not really luck.” Kasdeya was thoughtful. “We should have thought of it before. It makes sense to have your research facilities located close to your major weapon. But the prime factor is the nature of the junction itself. The junction domain has no physical phenomena of its own, therefore it provides an entropically quiet background against which Chaos events can be carefully observed. I suspect that’s why Zecol fetched his ship into the junction in the first place.”
Once they had become motionless with respect to the great bulk of the weapon, a period of a couple of hours elapsed during which a succession of shuttle-craft were seen to be exchanged between the ship and one of the satellites which spun furiously around the body of the great disk-like reactor. During this time a meal was brought to them and, significantly, a set of coveralls which almost, though not quite, concealed the gold-dyed hue of their skins.
The marshal spent a long time examining the Chaos Weapon in detail on the screen. Kasdeya had found how to operate a zoom control and how to alter the scanner angle sufficiently so that the whole weapon could be seen from end to end.
The techniques employed for the weapon’s construction were not half as fascinating as its gigantic scale. Including the separation spaces between the various units of the assembly, the whole contrivance must have approached two hundred and fifty kilometers in total length. It was not currently operating. A partial view of the interior of the great horn into which the star-stuff was spun showed great whorls and craters in the lining, where the inert material from which it had been made had succumbed to heavy corrosion by contact with the plasma from unwoven suns.
Eventually Zecol returned to find Wildheit still preoccupied with the viewing screen. He shook his head ruefully.
“The next time we locate a crippled
ship in space I shall order its immediate destruction in case there’s a space-marshal aboard. I don’t think I could stand contact with another one.” He was speaking directly to Kasdeya. “The marshal and the girl are being transferred to a Chaos research laboratory for experimentation. The remaining four of you will accompany them to act as interpreters. In this way you may buy yourselves a short stay of execution.”
“I understand,” said Kasdeya gravely.
“But don’t think you can escape. There’s no place you can run to. Your life expectancy is therefore directly proportional to the degree of your cooperation. A shuttlecraft awaits in the craft-lock. Gather your group together and assemble there.”
Slightly dazed by an unexpected degree of freedom, Kasdeya headed for the cells to receive Asbeel, Jequn and Penemue; then all six were permitted to make their way to the craft-lock and the waiting shuttle. Zecol and two guards accompanied them, and minutes later they were space-borne and beginning the intricate maneuvers that would match their speed and position with that of one of the space stations orbiting the Chaos Weapon.
The docking maneuver was perfectly executed, and soon they were treading the interior vastness of what, from the ship, had seemed a very diminutive artificial world. The eternity of metal corridors and metal walls was broken by great halls of equipment the nature of which meant little or nothing to Wildheit, but strongly suggested that Ra science had progressed far beyond that of the Federation. However, because of the human content of its design, the occasional glimpses of project rooms and service areas gave a futuristic rather than an alien impression.
