by Hogan, James
tax our patience for a while yet."
"But organic forests and animals ... a whole world full of such unsightliness?"
Morayak made a face. "It sounds so ugly, so unnatural . . . How could anyone
live there? Is that why they have come to Robia—to escape? But how—"
Lofbayel's wife, Kersenia, came in. "Ah, I thought I'd find you two here," she
said. "Lofbayel has hitched up the cart and is waiting before the house for you
now." Morayak got up, and followed with Thirg behind as Kersenia went back to
the hallway inside the front door. "And remember, don't go getting in the way or
making a nuisance of yourself," she said as Morayak put on his coat. "You are a
very lucky and privileged young robeing to be invited to the residence of
Kleippur. Don't let your father down, now."
"I won't," Morayak promised.
"I'm sure you have no cause to worry," Thirg said.
Thirg and Morayak left the house and climbed up beside Lofbayel, and Kersenia
stood in the doorway to see them off as the cart turned onto the roadway in the
direction of the city. It was good, Thirg thought to himself, to see the family
living free and without fear, with Lofbayel pursuing his studies openly and able
to teach at last in the way he had always wanted. He wondered if what he was
seeing could be an omen of things to come on a larger scale for the whole
robeing race. For the Lumians seemed to respect freedom and knowledge, and to
share generally the values that Thirg felt Kleippur and his vision for Carthogia
symbolized. Could the Lumians be offering a new future of opportunity for all
robeings, just as Carthogia offered a new future of opportunity for Thirg, and
for Lofbayel and his family? Would the old ways of the whole world of Robia now
fade into the past and be forgotten, just as Kroaxia was already fading into
their personal pasts and being forgotten?
So possibly the priests and the Scribings had been right after all in a way,
Thirg thought to himself. If the Lumians were indeed the Lifemaker, then perhaps
the Lifemaker did offer salvation from the toil and drudgery of worldly life ...
not in some hereafter world, however, but in this one—simply by taking the toil
and the drudgery out of it. That would seem the eminently sensible and simple
way of accomplishing such an objective, after all. Why would a
Lifemaker—especially one as intelligent and all-powerful as the priests were
always depicting—choose to do things the difficult way?
But Thirg had learned from long and bitter experience not to let his hopes run
too high about anything. There was always too much that could go wrong, and
usually it found a way of managing to. He wondered if lifemaking Skybeings had
the same problem.
"What he's doing is not compatible with the policy objectives that have been
confirmed from Earth," Daniel Leaherney said to Caspar Lang, on the Orion, "Also
I've been getting complaints that his style is interfering with the ability of
the personnel who are properly empowered to handle our relationships with the
aliens to discharge their duties in an effective manner. Can I leave it to you
to straighten the situation out?"
"What you mean is that Giraud's developing an inferiority complex because the
Taloids take more notice of Zambendorf than they do of him, Seltzman doesn't
feel he's getting all the glory he should be getting, and someone stuffy among
the scientific chiefs—probably Weinerbaum—is getting jealous and thinks his
dignity's being threatened," Lang said. He was getting just a little bit tired
of having to stay up in the ship all the time, taking care of everyone else's
problems.
Leaherney exhaled a long breath and snapped, "Look, that psychic is getting in
everyone's hair and taking over the show down there as if this whole mission had
been put together for no other reason than to boost his act. Your corporation
sent him here, Caspar, and it's your responsibility to keep him under control.
So read it any way you like, but I want something done about it."
An hour later Lang, feeling even more incensed after Leaherney's
uncharacteristic outburst, was looking grim-faced across his desk at Osmond
Periera. "Where's the schedule of the experiments you were supposed to be
carrying out with Zambendorf?" he demanded.
Periera looked flummoxed. "What? Why, er . . . I thought that was just part of
the Mars cover story. I thought—"
"The corporation isn't paying you to think; it's paying you to know," Lang
fumed. "Have you any idea how much it's cost to bring you people this distance?
My understanding was that you are here to investigate a serious scientific
phenomenon."
"Well, there's no question of that, but—"
"Then how much longer do I have to wait before I see something happening?" Lang
asked. "You're supposed to be responsible for organizing the experimental
program, okay? Well, it's about time you started organizing something. You don't
expect me to do it for you, do you?"
"No, of course not, but I ... I, that is ... He's down at Genoa Base One."
"Well, get him back up from Genoa Base One!" Lang yelled. "I agreed to his going
down on one trip to see the surface. Okay—he's seen it. Now get him back up here
and make a start on the job you were brought here to do. And nobody—repeat,
nobody—from that outfit goes down there again until we start seeing some
results. Understood?"
Periera gulped and nodded rapidly. "Yes, yes, of course."
"Good." Lang reached over to call his secretary on his terminal screen. "Get
this update on personnel authorizations into the system right away, Kathy. Karl
Zambendorf is recalled to the ship forthwith, and approval for surface descent
is denied him and his party until further notice."
22
ESKENDEROM, KING OF KROAXIA AND DIVINELY ORDAINED PROTECTOR of the Lifemaker's
True Faith, rested an elbow on an arm of his throne and glowered down over his
hand while he listened. Bowed over one knee at the foot of the steps before him,
Skerilliane, the spy, made a flourish in the air with his arm. "In tame dragons
as long as the palace is wide, they fly—many twelves of them at a time. In
strange, wheeled beasts the size of houses, through the streets of Menassim,
they ride. They conspire in secret league with Kleippur, and outside the city
they conduct rituals among the machines of the forest with the tame creatures
and magic vegetables. They are formed from burning fluids contained in soft
casings, and they share thoughts without impediment of distance, though they
utter no sound."
Eskenderom brooded while he absorbed the information, then lifted his head and
turned to look questioningly at Horazzorgio, who was standing to one side of the
steps. One of Horazzorgio's imaging matrixes was covered by a plastic cap, and a
welded plate blanked off the hole left by his missing arm. "The beings and the
creatures that serve them, I have seen not," Horazzorgio said. "But the dragons
are the same as those of the Meracasine, and the smaller spy-dragons are the
ones that swooped upon us, spitting lightning bolts and hurling fire. The violet
radiance too is the
same."
"What is the substance of the discourse that beings such as these would enter
into with Kleippur?" Frennelech inquired from the High Priest's seat, a level
below the throne and to the right.
"My informants have overheard much talk among Carthogia's counselors and
officers of forbidden arts and the unholy powers that are sought by heretics and
accursed ones," Skerilliane replied. "Carthogia places itself at the Dark
Master's disposal as a sanctuary for his servants and the base from which he
would enslave the world. Many worshipers of evil who have forsaken enlightenment
to serve him through his worldly lieutenant, Kleippur, are being conscripted to
the task— Maker-of-Maps Lofbayel and Asker-of-Forbidden-Questions Thirg being
among just the most recent additions." Horazzorgio's remaining imager glowed
angrily at the mention of the names. "And now, it seems, the Dark Master has
provided Kleippur with further aid as compensation for Carthogia's limited size
and means," Skerilliane concluded.
The King looked at Frennelech. "So—Kleippur's Dark Master sends dragons from the
sky to aid him. I see much energy expended on pomp and pageantry by the priests
of Kroaxia, Serethgin, and the other nations of the Sacred Alliance; I hear
endless praying, chanting, and supplication. Where, then, are your Lifemaker's
dragons?"
"In the face of adversity, faith shall overcome," Frennelech quoted in reply.
"It is a test sent to try us. We must not waver."
"Does the faith of the Waskorians help them to overcome in their struggle to
throw off Kleippur's yoke? I equipped them generously and sent our best combat
officers to instruct them, but in their last encounter with Kleippur's soldiers
they were decimated. The new Carthogian weapon that can hurl a pellet of steel
from thrice the range attainable by the strongest dartsman would appear more
efficacious than a mountain of dreary books or an eternity of incantations."
"Dragon-beings' weapons," Horazzorgio muttered, fingering his shoulder
unconsciously. "I know well of those too."
Frennelech looked uncomfortable, but before he could reply, Mormorel, the King's
Senior Counselor, who had been pacing slowly to and fro as he listened, turned
suddenly and moved to the center of the open floor below the throne and raised
his hands to draw attention. Skerilliane straightened up and moved respectfully
back while the others turned their heads curiously.
"It is possible that our alarm is premature," Mormorel said. "For what,
precisely, is it that substantiates the assumption—which none of us has
questioned—that these dragons are indeed emissaries of the Dark Master? That
they bear beings possessed of skills unfamiliar to us, we know; that they are
from regions unreported by our farthest-ranging travelers and explorers, we
know. But more of whence they come and why, we suppose much and know nothing. Is
it not possible that, rather than having been sent from some supernatural realm
for the advancement of sinister designs upon the world, they too could be
explorers, who find it expedient to enter into bargain with Kleippur for
rendering that which is of value to him in return for that which they in turn
have traveled far to seek?"
A silence descended around the throne room while the others digested the
implications of Mormorel's observations. "The news that Kleippur was receiving
powerful foreign aid could prove a strong source of inspiration and resolve for
our people," Horazzorgio mused. "They have long been mystified by the inability
of the Alliance armies to conquer tiny, stubborn Carthogia."
"What would beings such as these seek in lands such as ours?" Eskenderom asked
doubtfully.
"No amount of speculation will tell us that," Mormorel replied. "But whatever
the answer, can Carthogia offer anything that cannot be obtained in greater
abundance from Kroaxia's vaster territories or produced more cheaply by our more
numerous slaves and laborers? Thus we can better not only whatever bargain
Kleippur has made with these dragon-beings, but also any improvement that lies
within his power to offer."
"Mmm . . ." Eskenderom sat back and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. A gleam slowly
suffused his imagers. "If the dragon-beings' aid can make such a difference to
puny Carthogia, it would make a nation like Kroaxia . . ."
"Invincible," Frennelech completed in a distant voice.
Mormorel saw that he had made his point. He gave a slow, satisfied nod, and
looked from one to another of the faces around him. "Invincible not only against
Carthogia . . . but, should the occasion arise, against Serethgin, Corbellio,
Munaxios—all of them."
Another short silence fell. Then Frennelech pronounced in a voice that was
suddenly more sure of itself, "It is divinely ordained! The Lifemaker has sent
the dragon-beings from beyond the Barrier as His instrument to carry the True
Faith to all comers of the robeing world. We are the chosen bearers of that
instrument, which the Dark Master, through Kleippur, is attempting to misdirect.
The quest we are set is to initiate contact with the dragon-beings and discover
what the Lifemaker has directed them to seek. Thus has He chosen to reveal to us
His will."
Eskenderom looked at Skerilliane. "Has anything that you saw or heard provided
indication of what the dragon-beings seek from Kleippur?" he asked.
"Nothing. But it was not my purpose to look for such."
"Then it shall be your purpose now," Eskenderom declared. "Your assignment is to
return to Carthogia immediately and discover what the dragon-beings wish in
return for their aid. You are empowered to speak on behalf of the Kroaxian Crown
to express its desire for a direct dialogue, and to make appropriate offers as
guided by your own discretion to secure the attainment of that end."
"I shall begin preparations at once," Skerilliane said.
"One of your officers is to go too," Eskenderom told Horazzorgio. "Skerilliane
may have need of a soldier's expertise. Also, I would like to hear the opinion
of a military professional who has observed these dragon-beings firsthand."
"I request the King's permission to accompany him myself," Horazzorgio replied
at once. Eskenderom frowned, reluctant to make an issue of his captain's
condition. Horazzorgio saw the King's gaze travel from his eye to his arm. "If I
can return alone from the Meracasine, on foot and wounded, then surely I can
survive it accompanied, mounted, and recovered. Neither will Skerilliane's
mission be jeopardized, for my personal interests in this matter will more than
make up spiritually for what has been lost physically."
Eskenderom looked at him for a moment, and then at Skerilliane. "You shall be
the judge, for yours is the casing that will be at risk, not mine. Would you
have confidence in Horazzorgio as your companion? Speak truly, spy. This is not
a time to permit fear of personal insult to affect judgment and prudence."
"The spy should be never seen and never heard," Skerilliane answered. "Of what
importance is the appearance of he who exists not? Indeed, such business is more
often hampered than assisted by a pench
ant for deeds of recklessness and daring,
which Horazzorgio has ample reason to avoid. I have every confidence in the
prospect of our association."
The King looked at them for a moment longer, then nodded. "So be it." He stood
up from the throne and descended the steps before it, then stopped as an
afterthought struck him, and looked back at the High Priest. "I suppose you'd
better pray for their success," he said, and with that turned and strode away.
23
IT WAS LIKE BEING IN A TOMB, CASPAR LANG THOUGHT TO HIMSELF, or an ice cave
inside a glacier that was too deep for light to penetrate.
With more room available on Giraud's diplomatic delegation now that Zambendorf
and his team had been restricted to the ship, and with activities in and around
Genoa becoming more organized, Lang had taken the opportunity to come down to
the surface and involve himself more directly in the proceedings. He had seen
the incredible tangles of cluttered machinery and derelict structures that
surrounded the base and stretched away beyond the searchlight beams playing from
the sentry posts around the perimeter; the ghostly shapes of the city's
peculiar, cultivated houses and larger buildings of ice along the route to
Arthur's residence—which had been named Camelot, of course; and the strange,
clothed, bipedal robots and other machines that gathered to watch from the
shadows at the fringes of the vehicles' headlamp beams. Now he was sitting
awkwardly in a large ice chamber inside Camelot, which even had a sizeable
table, although not a round one. Looking like gigantic upright insects in the
weak circle of light from the two low-power lamps that the NASO engineers had
installed, Arthur and several other Taloids were sitting opposite, while to the
sides Giraud, Seltzman, and the remaining Terrans looked just as eerie and
grotesque in their jointed, smooth-surfaced, machinelike garb. Most of the
furnishings were of odd, Taloid pseudovegetable shapes, and the walls,
indistinct and shadowy in the background, were covered by thick woven-wire
hangings and weird designs worked in plastic and metal. The talks had been going
on for some hours.
"Tell them they've got it wrong, Konrad," Giraud's voice said in Lang's helmet,
coming through on local frequency. "We are not planning to exploit their people
