The Navigator of Rhada

by Robert Cham Gilman

  The Galacton moved his sandaled feet on the deck and let the flower he was holding fall into the green waters of the river. He watched the tiny splash and the ripples that lapped against the hull of the great barge and were gone. Florian was right, of course, about the Rim worlders. Only the Rim troubled the tranquility of the Empire. He drew a deep breath and looked across the water toward the southern tip of Tel-Manhat. A squadron of starships hovered there, meters above the rocky shingle of beach, their boarding nets aswarm with warmen in full fighting kit. Veg Tran was embarking the last formations of the peacekeeping force for departure to the Aurori sector.

  Torquas shook his head half in anger. The bells in his hair and beard tinkled musically, but their sound quite failed to please him. He saw something else that failed to please him, as well. It was a military cutter setting out from the south shore, oars flashing in the sunlight, and General Veg Tran’s personal standard flapping languidly at the stern. Tran coming to take his leave, no doubt. Torquas frowned and looked away. He wished the man would simply go and have done with it. The Vegan always managed to make Torquas feel the fool and quite inadequate, somehow.

  Why was it, Torquas wondered, that he could do this? And why was it that he, Torquas the Galacton--the veritable King of the known universe--should always feel it prudent to do exactly as the dreadful man said? For Tran’s sake, Torquas had reduced the number of Navigators at court to a bare minimum. There had been bitter words with the Grand Master ben Yamasaki over it. And though the Star knew that certainly Torquas didn’t actually believe in all that rot the Navigators preached, the people of the Empire did, and so Tran and his AbasNav bullies getting their way was all very well, but who had to pay for it? Torquas, that was who paid. By the veritable Star, Tran was as troublesome to the Empire as the whole of the Rim --but without him what could be done? My ancestors conquered the sky, Torquas thought bleakly, and ruled an Empire--but I am not as they were. He felt weak and without purpose. There were actually times, when he found himself surrounded by the nihilistic hedonists he had gathered to be his court, that he felt as though he were acting a part: the simpering young aristocrat with perfumed beard and bells in his hair. By the spirit of blackest space, how his fighting ancestors would have laughed at the spectacle of Torquas, Galacton, Commander of the Star- fleets, Defender of the Faith, and Hereditary warleader of Vyka!

  But it was so much easier to be the Sybarite while men like General Veg Tran ran the Empire. Sloth consumes me, he thought. Was there the beginnings of a poem there? Perhaps an epic, a vapid strophe to sing the end of a noble, savage line of star kings. Torquas, thirteenth of that name. Torquas the Last.

  He moved his head again, and the sound of the platinum bells irritated him. He snatched them from his shoulder- length hair and threw them into the water. They sank without trace. So will the Torquans go, he thought, and self- pitying tears came into his eyes. Out of Vyka came Glamiss Magnifico and his sons: the warrior kings who brought mankind out of the Black Time. And now--was it really over? Did the end of the line lie just beyond the horizon? Did the Second Stellar Empire belong now to the Veg Trans?

  The Galacton watched the approaching cutter. The water sparkled at its raked prow: a froth of diamonds. The sunlight glinted from the steel scales of the mailed warmen at the gunwales. And Sebastian, the Polari cyborg, danced nearby and brushed the Galacton’s bare skin with the edge of a cymbal. Torquas jerked his shoulder away in annoyance, and the courtiers tittered with languid laughter.

  The sunshine was bright, almost metallic. It hurt Torquas’s eyes. He really felt rather unwell. Last night’s drugs had left a residue in his throat. This morning he had forbidden his companions to smoke hemp on the barge, but it was obvious that some had defied him, for the tang of the stuff was already in the air. They don’t even obey me, Torquas thought petulantly. I am their King, and they don’t even obey me when I tell them a simple thing like “No drugs on the barge this morning because I’m ill.” What sort of loyalty was that?

  The cutter was curving in across the calm water, making ready to come alongside the Imperial barge. Torquas could hear the rattle of shipping oars and the quiet, clipped commands to the warmen and crew. He could see Veg Tran in the stem: he wore ceremonial mail and a black surcoat with the golden flail and grain-sheaf insignia of Vega embroidered on it. The Veg family crest. One would think that an Imperial general starting a peace-keeping expedition to the Rim would at least wear the sunburst of the Empire. If it were Glamiss he were reporting to, or even any one of the noble Vyks who had once ruled in Nyor, he would certainly not have dared such arrogance. But it is Torquas the Poet who rules here, the young man thought bleakly. Anything goes.

  The general’s face was stem under the rim of his helmet. Torquas met the older man’s eyes across the water and turned away. He wished there were a Navigator here now. Somehow, a priest at his side would have made this encounter more bearable. But there were no longer Navigators at court. Only the priests actually in command of the starships had a place, now that Tran’s AbasNav bullies were everywhere. And there were even sacrilegious rumors that the Vegan was, in fact, training unconsecrated men to pilot the holy vessels. A shiver of superstitious dread ran down Torquas’s back. He considered himself completely liberated from the old religious views, of course, but the thought of secular men actually piloting starships churned the darkness in some pit of racial memory. It was quite out of the question, really. Tran, no matter how he hated the clergy, would never dare drive the Navigators from the sacred starships. But a lingering doubt remained, like a bead of undigested horror deep inside him, under the heart.

  It was too much to think about--too painful to contemplate.

  The Lady Florian joined him at the rail. Her silver headdress, a tall filigree crusted with gem stones, flashed in the sunlight. She wore the low-hanging skirt, wasp-waisted and gathered at her ankles, that she had popularized among the women of the court. From her hips to her chin she wore only a complex trellis of vines and flowers painted on her naked skin. A cloying sweetness of scent from southern Africasia surrounded her. She was really quite beautiful, Torquas thought disinterestedly. But ornate. Intricately clothed, made-up, worked. Like a poem that might have once been lovely but that had been rewritten, edited, rewritten again and still again, until all spontaneity and life was gone from it. Florian, at twenty, was encased in artifice. There was no way of knowing what sort of person there was under the applique--or even if there was a person there at all.

  “Who is that with Tran?” she asked.

  Torquas noted now that Tran wasn’t alone in the stem of the cutter. There was a young warman with him, a Rhad by his harness. The proud, pale face was like carved ivory in the morning light.

  “I heard that Tran had a guest at Saclara,” Florian said speculatively. “A Gonlani-Rhad. Some sort of barbarian princeling.” It had become fashionable among the nobles of the court to call citizens of the outlying sectors of the Empire “barbarians.” Florian was always fashionable. “He’s very handsome, isn’t he?”

  Torquas studied the cold, set face of the Rhad. He remembered now, too, that there had been talk of a Gonlani warman at Saclara. Karston, that was the name. Son of the star king of Gonlan, who was a dependent of old Alberic of Rhada. What was Tran doing bringing him here? And why was he taking him on a straightforward peace-keeping campaign on the Rim? It was never wise for the Empire to take sides in the petty dynastic squabbles of the subject nations. That much of statecraft Torquas remembered from the endless sessions with his warlock and Navigator tutors in childhood. He frowned with an effort to remember. That first evening Tran had mentioned the need to take troops to the Rim he had said--what? The Vegan had burst in on a two-day hemp-gathering, and it was difficult to remember exactly what was said now.

  The cutter touched the side of the barge, and the crewmen were making her fast. Florian was eying the “barbarian” with distinct interest.

  Torquas knit his brows with the effort to recall
Tran’s exact words. Something about protecting a Navigator’s sanctuary from the Gonlani. Tran--showing concern for the clergy. He most certainly should have questioned that. But there had been the drugs and the music, and somehow it hadn’t seemed inconsistent.

  “The Gonlani are going to attack Aurora, King. Surely we are entitled to protect a holy enclave?” That was it. Those had been Tran’s exact words. And now here he was with a Gonlani-Rhad prince--and over there, across a few meters of open water, a squadron of starships was embarking Tran’s own Vegan division and thirty regiments of Vyk soldiers. What was going on here? How could something like this happen--and what did it mean?

  Suddenly, the Galacton began to grow afraid.

  For his part, Karston of Gonlan was uncertain of his own status among these glittering Imperials. General Veg Tran had shown him considerable hospitality, first at his Saclara estates, and later here in Nyor. Karston had been entertained with wild-dog hunts in the Saclara Valley and with military ceremonials in the capital. But he was never without an armed escort of Tran’s personal troops, and until now, only moments before embarkation of the expeditionary force, he had not been allowed to call upon the Galacton as was his hereditary right as a star king of the Empire.

  It was characteristic of Karston that he resented the implied slight on his noble rank more than the unquestioned loss of his liberty and freedom of action. Tran frightened him, though he would have let himself be cut to bits before admitting it. And though his outward poise remained intact, he was badly shaken by the interview with Tran on the terrace at Saclara. To a man of his age, the very existence of the legendary energy weapons of the First Empire was anathema. For many generations the people of the nation-state created by Glamiss the Magnificent and his captains had been nurtured on the concept of freedom from the world-smashing death that had ended the Golden Age. Now Tran, through the instrument of Karston’s own treachery to his king and father, stood to take such weapons in hand once more.

  Karston stood now at his place in the cutter as the craft was made fast to the Imperial barge. In spite of his misgivings, he could not help but be impressed by the affluence and splendor all around him. The barge was a broad- beamed ship, blunt at bow and stern, and driven by captives turning massive twin screws deep below the waterline. The hull was silvered so that it blazed like newly minted coins in the bright sunshine. The Imperial pavilion occupied most of the sterncastle: a silken replica of the complex tents of the herdsmen of Vyka. Pennons trailed almost to the waterline from the spiked staffs around the gunwales. On each was embroidered the insignia of one of the Galacton’s private holdings: the hammer and ax of Vyka, the reaper of Antares, the crown and arrow of Sirius, and fully a dozen others. The descendants of that first tribal chieftain of Vyka who had looked to the stars had done very well, indeed. Their personal wealth, Karston thought greedily, must be almost beyond tally.

  The ship, a full two hundred meters from stem to stem, moved sluggishly in the slow swell that invaded the river from the Eastern Sea. A guard of honor, Vyks and Vegans by their harness, had formed at the gangway that had been lowered to the deck of Tran’s cutter.

  A few disinterested faces lined the polished railings. Apparently most of the young courtiers of Torquas’s entourage did not think a visit from a departing general worthy of much interest. Karston could hear the sound of laughter and music on deck, and the tinging noise of cymbals.

  He felt gauche and ill-dressed in his warman’s harness, even though he had taken pains to wear the feathered cape of a Rim-world star king. He was aware of the fact that he was not yet, technically, at least, entitled to such finery. Nor would he be until the council of Gonlan informed him that he was, in fact, star king of the Gonlani-Rhad. And even then, his title needed to be confirmed by old Alberic of Rhada.

  Early the previous evening, he had watched from the high terraces of Tran’s quarters in the city as five starships carrying the first elements of Vegan warmen departed the city for Aurora. At least, Tran had said Aurora was their destination; but it seemed quite likely to Karston, after two weeks of Tran’s suppressive “hospitality,” that the Vegans were bound for Gonlan. A division of Vegans and thirty regiments of Vyk Imperials seemed far too powerful a force for the task of peace-keeping on Aurora, while a Veg division--properly deployed--could very easily hold Gonlan after the departure of most of the Gonlani-Rhad troops for Aurora.

  Karston felt an unwilling admiration for Veg Tran in this situation. He was wagering everything on one bold evolution: to hold Gonlan as a base, to interpose himself between the Aurorans and the Gonlani-Rhad and violate an enclave of the Order to obtain the ultimate weapons. If all his moves succeeded, and there was no reason to suppose that they would fail now, this gilded gathering of popinjay courtiers floating on the sunlit waters of the East River would very soon be bowing to a new, de facto Galacton.

  Tran was stepping on board the barge now, and Karston followed him. There was a stir among the limpid courtiers as a young man in ornate harness came forward. Karston had an impression at first only of elaborately curled hair and beard and almond-shaped blue eyes outlined in cobalt make-up. A golden circlet bearing the Imperial sunburst of the Empire gleamed in the morning brightness.

  This, then, was Torquas the Poet. Portraiture had never reached a high degree of perfection in the Second Empire, and the ancient science of “photography” remained one of the lesser mysteries. Thus it was that the only likeness of the Galacton Karston of Gonlan had ever seen was the relief profile of the Vyk face etched into the Imperial coinage.

  Tran was addressing the young ruler in military, almost brusque tones. He used the familiar Vegan title of “Leader” rather than the more formal “King.” This in itself was a measure of his contempt for the present head of the House of Vyka.

  The women of the Galacton’s group had gathered, and more than a few of them were eying Karston’s massive physique with interest. And Karston, young and a Rhad, had let his attention be diverted from the face and figure of the richly caparisoned Vyk, to whom Tran was presenting him.

  Karston now gave his attention to the proprieties and drew himself up to salute the ruler of the Second Empire.

  His mouth dropped open, and the blood drained from his face. He felt the impact of an impossible, improbable shock in his knees and elbows. For one ghastly moment he thought he might actually stumble and fall.

  He was looking into the face of his bond-brother Kynan. Kynan the Navigator. The priest. Kynan the foundling--

  He fought back an impulse to cry out, to deny the evidence of his own eyes. What he saw, what stood there before him, was blatantly, obviously impossible. Yet it was so. Kynan. Kynan to the life.

  The young Galacton was regarding him with an expression of languid perplexity, a half smile on his made-up lips.

  Karston took a firmer grip on himself and made an unbelieving obeisance. He glanced at General Tran, but the older man showed no expression other than one of impatient contempt. He thought, Karston realized with great clarity, that meeting the ruler of the known galaxy was overpowering a simple Rim-worlder’s breeding and manners. He didn’t know--

  “I am sorry you haven’t had time to sample the enjoyments of our court, Karston of Gonlan. Perhaps on your return you’ll join us here in Nyor--” The Galacton was speaking, making the sort of polite conversation one might expect from a great king to one of his lesser nobles. Karston studied the astonishingly familiar face. Identical. But for the long hair and the perfumed beard and the painted eyes and mouth, it was his bond-brother Kynan who stood before him. There could be no mistake.

  Kynan, he thought, shaken--twin brother to Torquas, Galacton, descendant of a hundred royal Vyks--heir to mighty Glamiss himself. It was staggering, dismaying-- but there could be no other explanation.

  Karston was dynast enough to know what a disaster for a royal house the birth of twin sons could be. For the most royal house of all, such an event could be catastrophic: raising the specter of wars of
the succession, civil strife with each faction claiming a royal prince as their own and legitimate heir to the Imperium.

  What better solution, then, to choose one son to bear the name and titles and to spirit the other away to the end of the sky to be raised in harmless obscurity?

  But who could have been entrusted with such a task?

  Who could have the power to take a newborn from a royal queen and deliver him, in time, to the house of a petty noble on the rim of the known world--and thence to Algol Two, to the cowled men of the Theocracy?

  Only the Navigators. Only they--

  With a sudden insight that was like a revelation, Karston realized that he possessed information worth infinitely more than the overlordship of the Gonlani-Rhad.

  What he had this moment discovered was something that could truly shake the Trans and Torquases and Grand Masters, could shake the very foundations of the Empire--

  He wondered if Kynan knew, and the answer came swiftly and surely. Kynan had no inkling of his origins. Kynan was a priest, a Navigator, nothing more, a man content to spend his life piloting starships and spreading the faith of the Star amid the heathen.

  Standing on the deck of the Imperial barge, face to face with the ruler of his world, Karston of Gonlan had to suppress the wild impulse to shout with laughter.

  General Veg Tran was regarding him speculatively. Oh, no, Tran, Karston thought. Perhaps you may be allowed to know, but only when-- and if--it profits me, Karston, star king of the Gonlani-Rhad. And now, who could say how much more?

  The formal meeting was swiftly concluded, and Karston, hardly remembering how or what he said, took his leave of Torquas and his court. As he returned to the cutter and watched Tran in final, whispered consultations with the Galacton, Karston had difficulty containing his excitement. He looked across the water to the starships. The embarkation of Vyk troops was nearly complete. Only moments ago he, Karston, had come across the waters of the river downcast and half frightened of the forces to which he had committed his fortunes.