“Open the starboard valve in five minutes, Evart,” he ordered.
“Are you going out alone, First Pilot?”
“I want you and the others to remain here. Hold preflight power and be ready to take the ship away if I do not return by morning.” The protection of the starship was the first and most holy duty of any Navigator.
The three juniors inclined their heads and murmured an Ave Stella for his safety.
Kynan left the bridge and hurried to his quarters for his robe, cowl, and weapons. The ache behind his eyes was filling him with urgency.
Armed and cowled, his mail heavy on his breast, he sought Janessa. The girl was with the warlock in the corridor leading to the stables. She looked frightened, and Kynan felt a pang of remorse. He had been neglecting his ward. He had been too busy to keep her informed, and it was forbidden, of course, for any unconsecrated person to enter the control room of a starship. She burst into questions as he appeared.
“Where are we, Kynan? What is this place? Are we near Star Field? What’s happened?”
Kynan silenced her with a hand on her shoulder. He spoke with some difficulty because his head was hurting badly. “We are in a forest near the Great Inland Sea. We saw a signal. There are two starships of the Order landed here. I am going to report to my superiors.” “But Star Field? The Gonlani strike force?” Her eyes were alight with patriotic concern for her city and her people.
“The strike force must be far behind us. But we did see a squadron of Imperials. I don’t know yet what that means, but perhaps I can find out now.”
Baltus said, “You say there are two starships of the Order here? What of the sanctuary?”
Kynan decided to say nothing about the mysterious light he had seen surrounding the Navigators’ enclave. It wasn’t wise to discuss everything freely with seculars, particularly warlocks.
“I must go immediately,” he said. “Baltus, you must stay here with Janessa.”
“We can’t go with you?” the girl asked.
“Better not,” Kynan said, moving away.
“You don’t look well, Kynan,” Baltus said.
“I will take Skua. It isn’t far.”
Kynan saw, with a sense of some pleasure, a look of deep concern on Janessa’s face. He could not resist an impulse to touch her silvery blond hair. She came to him, pressed herself against his mailed chest, and kissed him. Baltus looked away with un-warlockish politeness.
Then Kynan stepped over the scuttle into the stable and called to Skua as the great valve began to dilate and the night smells of Aurora’s forests seeped into the cavernous belly of the starship. For Janessa, the scent of the inland water, the great trees, and the wind were the odors of home. She watched the young Navigator saddle Skua and swing lightly to her back, and she was still standing at the bulkhead as horse and rider moved down the ramp and into the forest.
“You love him, princess?” Baltus asked quietly.
“He is my choice,” she said simply.
The old war mare, moving lightly as a filly, picked her way with dainty steps through the rubble of fallen leaves and branches brought down by the starship’s descent.
Kynan, his head still throbbing with sick pain, sat loosely in the saddle. The weight of his pistol and the sword slung across his back seemed to drag at him. His eyes hurt with the pressure of the steel cap and cowl on his forehead. Ahead, more than a kilometer from where his vessel had finally touched down, he could see the imperative pencil of light from the laser signal.
“To the light, Skua,” he said.
“Yes, Ky-nan,” the animal replied, bobbing her head and shaking her mane. She was rested but hungry: there had been no game for her since leaving Melissande. She hoped for battle and the rewards of a fight--the flesh of her alien cousins. But her primitive telepathy told her that there were no chargers ahead--only many men.
Kynan rode slackly. It seemed to him that the closer he came to the narrow beam of light in the forest, the more painful the ache in his skull became. He was seriously worried now, for it seemed to him that he had contracted, in some mysterious way, a terrible and possibly deadly ailment. There was madness in it, too. He was thinking of his visions, and of the crashing, demanding commands that seemed to burst unbidden into his consciousness. The whole business filled him with sadness: he had been raised a Rhad, after all, and the Rhad were among the most melancholy people in the galaxy. Their guest songs were filled with sad tales of broken love affairs and battles won only at the cost of hero’s lives. Their sagas were laments and their melodies all in minor keys. It was said that the Rhad lived at the edge of the sky and grew sad because there were no more worlds left to conquer.
He moved through what appeared to be an immense, groined hall in which the giant trees were the columns, the tops, far overhead, the vaulted arches. It made him think of the great churches on Algol, the flaming Star symbol on the high altar, the echoing chants of the hidden choirs singing the Psalms and the ephemerides. He was filled with a great, weary love for the Order, which brought reason and religion into a universe teeming with angry men and nations.
He urged Skua to go a bit more quickly. He had been too long away from the comfort of his Order. What a relief it would be now to lay his burden down before superiors, to tell them what was happening and let them decide what should be done.
The mare’s padded paws made no sound on the forest floor as she carried Kynan into the small clearing. The immense curving flank of a starship loomed overhead. Kynan raised his eyes to the open valve. There, with the light behind him, stood a prince of the Order. The Navigator could not make out the golden spaceship and star on the priest’s breast, but no insignia was needed to mark this man as a high priest. There was fur edging on his cowl, and it seemed that he stood in a halo of brilliance from within the starship.
He looked down at the rider and spoke. “Come with me, Nav Kynan.” His voice was sonorous, that of a man accustomed, for many years, to commanding.
Kynan dismounted, knelt on the ground, and made the sign of the Star. “Bless me, Father,” he said.
The older priest made the ritual sign and said, “Come quickly now, my son.”
It did not occur to Kynan to wonder how the prince knew his name, or that he would be in these skies at this particular time. The ghostly knowledge of the Five was legendary. And this was, indeed, one of the fabled quintet of advisers to the Grand Master. The singular cut of his robes Kynan could now see made that plain. He was filled with awe and wonder but not surprise. It was right and reasonable that wherever in the galaxy trouble brewed, there would be the power of the Five to protect both the Order and the faithful.
Kynan said to Skua, “Wait for me.”
The mare’s blue-green eyes glittered in the light from the open valve. “Yes, Ky-nan. May I hunt? I hunger.”
“Hunt, but don’t go far.”
The mare bared her teeth and wheeled to gallop into the forest.
The Tactician followed the colloquy between horse and man with interest. “A Rhadan horse. They are rare, Nav Kynan.”
“Not in this part of the galaxy, Father. The Rhad sell them throughout all this province of the Empire.”
It seemed to Kynan that the senior priest reacted coldly to his mention of the Empire, but he could have imagined it. His sickness was heavily upon him. He made his way up the ramp and presented himself to the great Navigator. “Blessings on the Five,” he said respectfully.
The older man’s eyebrows arched. His dark eyes glittered with intelligence and purpose. Never, thought Kynan devoutly, had he seen so commanding a face. Not even Kreon of Gonlan looked like this.
“So you know who I am,” the Tactician said. “Very well, that is good. It will save much time. I am not the only one here, my son. All the Five are here. What we must do here tonight and when morning comes is that important to our Order. Do you understand me?”
“I hear you, Father,” Kynan said humbly.
“We have names, my son.
But we seldom use them. I am called simply the Tactician.”
Kynan inclined his head, impressed. Tactician was the title given the nearest thing to a supreme military commander extant in the Order of Navigators.
“Are you unwell, Kynan?”
“A fever of some sort, I think, Father. I seem to have contracted it on Gonlan.”
The shrewd eyes narrowed. “Or from a Vulk, my son?” By the holy Star, Kynan thought. He even knows that!
Was there no limit to the power to know among the princes of the Order?
The Tactician took Kynan’s arm and led him into the starship. As he walked, he spoke. “You were brought here for a purpose, Kynan. For a mighty purpose of immense importance to our Order. What you must do will require great sacrifice and courage. But always remember that you are of the Order. The Order is your strength, your courage, your purpose. It is your very reason for being. That is the way of the Navigator.”
The words were both frightening and soothing to Kynan. He could feel the sheltering arms of the brotherhood of the Order enfolding him, sustaining him.
“History is a mighty stream, my son. It flows through time in mysterious ways known only to God and his holy Star. But there are choices to be made, changes that even mere men can sometimes, in God’s great mercy, affect in history’s flow. Do you understand that, Kynan?” He maintained his grip on Kynan’s arm and went on, not waiting for an answer to his rhetorical question. “Occasionally, once in generations, there is a confluence of forces, a time of decision. In those times there is a nexus in which all change--all possibility of different history--is concentrated in one event--in one individual.”
He stopped before the star-blazoned door to the starship’s bridge. Kynan had never seen such a door as this in a starship. It was something unknown in the construction of all the vessels in which he had served. The implication was enormous, staggering. This was a new thing, something added to the ancient, immortal vessels. To his young mind it was blasphemy, yet if it was countenanced here on the starship of the Five, it could not be unholy. The presence of the door and the symbol meant that the Order itself had rebuilt and modified a starship. It was incredible but true.
But what the Tactician said next was an even greater shock to Kynan.
“Twenty years ago such an event occurred, such a nexus was created. You are such a nexus of power, Nav Kynan.” Before Kynan could react to that astonishing statement, the Tactician had swung open the door to the control room, and Kynan faced the four remaining members of the Five.
The priest who seemed the oldest of the group rose and came forward. “I am the Theologian, Nav Kynan.” The ghost of a smile touched the withered lips. “My colleagues sometimes call me the Preacher.”
Kynan could only nod his head. He was unable to contain or control his spinning thoughts.
“Are you devout, my son? Are you a true son of the Order?”
“I believe so, Father,” Kynan replied. His throat felt dry, and his voice sounded hoarse and unsteady.
“That is good. Because what you must do will demand all your devotion, all your ability to withstand temptation.” The Tactician said, “That is the Psychologist. That is the Logician. They are often at odds, just as the Preacher and I are. It is understood that this is so, for what we plan for the Order is never simple, and all voices must be heard before the Grand Master acts. And that is the Technician. Perhaps he can ease your pain.”
Kynan now looked about in wonder to see that many new things had been incorporated into this starship. The bridge was filled with unfamiliar equipment, banks of it. “I don’t understand you, Father,” he said.
“I told you that you were a nexus, Kynan. This means that, since birth, you have been watched and cared for by the Order. Long before you finished your cadetship on Gonlan, you were a ward of the Navigators. It was the Order who brought you to Kreon--a true son of the faith. It was the Order who educated and trained you. You have been watched every day of your twenty years, Kynan-- watched and guided and protected.”
Kynan regarded the Tactician with an expression of complete confusion. The older man smiled and nodded. “It is so, my son. Believe it.” The smile faded. “Days ago the Royal Vulk of Rhada came near to discovering how this was done--and more dangerously, why. Since that time you have been suffering great pain, is that not so?”
“Yes, Father,” Kynan said wonderingly.
“He came near to breaking your conditioning. He probed deeply in a kind of Triad--but with a much stronger mind- touch. What remained were the physical implants.”
“The what?” Uncomprehending, Kynan frowned.
The Tactician said, “Show him.”
The man known as the Technician walked to a machine and made an adjustment. Instantly, the throbbing ache in Kynan’s skull ceased. For a moment he found it impossible to grasp the immense implications of what had happened in that moment.
He pushed off his cowl and steel cap. The casque clattered, rolling on the deck. Kynan pressed his fingertips to his head; he was trembling.
“Surgical implants?” he said raspingly.
“Since five days after your birth,” the Technician said calmly. “They were made on the starship carrying you to Gonlan from Earth.”
“As the plan progressed,” the Tactician went on inexorably, “we found that we would need an amplifier near you. The choice was Janessa. She underwent an appendectomy at Star Field a year ago. She, too, was implanted.”
The room seemed to rock around Kynan. He imagined tendrils of invisible wire lacing through his brain, through the soft pulpy gray of it, like metal veins and arteries--controlling him--like a cyborg--and they did something almost as bad to Janessa, to Janessa-- “My God,” he breathed. “Oh, my God!”
This, then, was the source of the wild dreams, the spinning galaxies, the crown of Earth--all of it . . .
His stomach churned with sickness. He clutched his violated skull with clawed fingers as though to tear the implants out with his nails.
“We would not have taken such liberties with a fellow human being, my son,” the Tactician went on relentlessly, “but for your vital importance to the Empire and the Order. Your life has been our guarantee of survival--of triumph--in a hostile universe. And now we must enforce that guarantee. If you are a puppet--remember you are a puppet of the Order, of God, of the holy Star. Cling fast to your faith, my son--”
“My faith--” Kynan said in a voice like death. “My faith--”
“It has come to pass, my son, that the plan created so long ago--on the occasion of your birth, to be exact-- must now go forward. And now, you shall see how and why.” The Tactician strode to the blazoned door. The Preacher threw up his hands in protest. “By the holy Star, brother! Not here! You aren’t bringing him here? He is unconsecrated!”
Kynan scarcely heard. Who was unconsecrated? And what did it matter? What did it matter now?
“Many things must change tonight, brothers,” the Tactician said stonily. He strode to the door and swung it open.
Kynan raised his haunted eyes. There was a movement in the open archway.
The Tactician stepped forward holding the arm of a young man. To Kynan, it was the shock of looking into a mirror.
To Torquas the Poet, it was a supernatural horror that left him whimpering and pleading to be forgiven sins even he, in his endless inventiveness, could never have committed.
The twin sons of Torquas XII, Galacton, the Star King of the Galaxy, Hereditary Warleader of Vyka, and a dozen more resounding titles, had met at last.
18
How, then, may men rule themselves, Grand Master?
The legends say there is the rule of none, the rule of one, the rule of some, and the rule of all. Autocracy is better than anarchy and nihilism. Oligarchy is better than dictatorship. But the best is democracy. However, do not ask me how democracy comes, brothers. I do not know.
Emeric of Rhada, Grand Master of Navigators, The Dialogues,
early Second S
tellar Empire period
In line astern, the first elements of the advance squadron from Nyor approached the sanctuary. They came at low level, across the land and into the glare of the rising sun of Aurora.
And on the crest of the landward hills, another formation, Navigators carrying green fronds and leading a single mounted man, made a procession of somber black against the dun-colored flank of the Auroran land. Their chanting carried on the morning air. They moved slowly, as all religious processions do. At the head of the line four princes of the Order marched in the dust. Behind them rode a man on a war mare. He was dressed in homespun, but on his brow rested the circlet, jeweled with sunbursts, of the King.
Near the rear of the holy procession walked Janessa and Baltus, the warlock. They had been cowled and robed, and they went now under gentle guard, surrounded by chanting Navigators.
Janessa felt a strange premonition. The Navigators had appeared out of the early morning darkness, and they had taken her and Baltus to a place in the forest and draped them both in Navigator’s robes. All of this had been done in silence, and no one would answer her questions. Where was Kynan? Whence came all these cowled men? And why did they walk in humble religious procession now toward that holy place her grandfather had ceded so long ago to the Order?
“Baltus,” the girl said, “I’m frightened. Where is Kynan?”
The old warlock squeezed her arm and said nothing. Far ahead in the procession she could see Skua. And on her back was a man in homespun. He was far off and rode facing away from her. Kynan? But on his dark head rested the gemmed crown of the Galacton. She could see the morning light striking spears of brilliance from the jewels.
“Baltus--what’s happening?”
“Look,” the warlock said. He was watching the sky, and now she could see the five starships coming on slowly, the sunlight bright on the Imperial blazon on their prows.
Except for the chanting, there was no sound in the still morning. All around her, the priests walked with downcast eyes, their faces hidden by their cowls. She could smell the dusty warmth of their bodies and the bitter tang of their oiled mail. They were armored, but unarmed, and they held the green fronds with their folded arms across their chests.
The Navigator of Rhada Page 15
