by Hugh Cook
Ash had been briefed on the password as he came through the lockway, for Paraban Senk had over-ridden the customary lecturing voices of the lockway to give Ash a quick and vital briefing.
"Junket," said the dorgi sourly, speaking in a low and reverbrating voice, and speaking without bothering to come out from its lair.
"Destroyer," said Ash.
"Up yours too," said the dorgi.
Then the normally withdrawn and silent Ash grinned and stepped forward, and Shona saw him coming and grinned too, and they embraced, and went dancing down the corridor together. Then they broke apart. And Ash whooped. And Shona yelled.
"Open!" said Shona in jubilation.
"Open!" responded Ash.
"Planets!"
"Stars!"
"Opera magnificat!"
"Holidays on Vulip!"
"Ecstasy amplifiers!"
"Ice!"
"Jerkaram!"
"Particle Basp! In the flesh!"
"Oh do shut up," said the dorgi, speaking in dull-grumbling thunder. "You're hysterical. The pair of you."
"Why shouldn't we be?" said Shona.
"Yes, why not?" said Ash. "The Chasm Gates are open. And you know what that means."
"What?" said the dorgi, which could not even begin to guess.
"Psyche therapy for a certain dorgi," said Ash. "Psyche therapy urgently overdue, a good ten millennia overdue."
At which the dorgi, goaded beyond endurance, came roaring out of its lair, zulzers swiveling. But Ash and Shona just stood there and laughed at it – laughed and laughed, exhilarated beyond all words.
And Hatch?
Asodo Hatch came striding down the cream-colored corridors of the Combat College, striding along in company with Beggar Grim, Master Zoplin and the mighty Lord X'dex Paspilion. Hatch strode along at such a pace that the three beggars had to positively scuffle to keep up with him. Hatch gave the password to the dorgi with an uncommon curtness, brushed aside the greetings he received from Shona and Ash, then entered the lockway airlock with his beggars.
"Let's plan our families together," said the lockway.
"Planned parenthood is the maximum most in happiness. Your pharmacist or your family physician is the best person to advise you further."
Hatch heard yet did not hear the words. He was thinking, thinking, thinking of what lay outside the lockway. Thinking of the city and the Free Corps, and what he must to seize control of Dalar ken Halvar and then to consolidate that control.
Chapter Thirty
Lupus Lon Oliver: sometime Combat Cadet and Startrooper now graduated from the Combat College and hence effectively exiled from the world of the Nexus. Son of Manfred Gan Oliver and a leading light of the Free Corps of Dalar ken Halvar. Note that Lupus Lon Oliver means "Lupus, the hope of the family Oliver", while Manfred Gan Oliver means "Manfred, the strength of the family Oliver."
If dreams came true -
If monsters from the lusts of night
Drenched their claws,
And through her perfumes conjured -
Then nospeak dares to say -
Yet still in dreams we conjure,
And thus must risk -
The walls elapsing, and one world Drenching its scorpions in waves into the other.
Yet I dream too.
Asodo Hatch ventured out of the Combat College with the intent of spreading the news of the opening of the Chasm Gates, but found there was no need for him to take any steps in that direction. In a city at peace, the news of the opening of the Chasm Gates might have taken a while to spread. But Dalar ken Halvar was a city poised for war, its leadership of the moment in nerve-edge readiness for trouble, its sentries posted, its couriers running messages routinely through the streets, its people acutely tuned to the faintest rumblings of the rumor-mill.
Consequently, the news of the reopening of the Chasm Gates struck with something of the swift-shock speed of news breaking in a high-tech inter-wired society. And Hatch very shortly returned to the Combat College to participate in a conference in Forum Three.
Given some of the murderous passions which were then unleashed, Hatch had cause to be very glad that the three people closest to his heart were safe in the illusion tanks, seated in the combat bays and walled in by unbreachable walls of kaleidoscope. Most murderously passionate of all people on that day was Lupus Lon Oliver.
When Lupus heard that Hatch was to be the Nexus-appointed ruler of Dalar ken Halvar, he was incensed. And when Lupus heard that the Nu-chala, the religious leader based on the holy planet of Borboth, had additionally appointed Hatch to be his deputy in Dalar ken Halvar, then Lupus was so enraged that he almost suffered a terminal melt-down.
"Nu-chala-nuth!" said Lupus, using that word as an obscenity.
"Are we to set the Yara free to rabble in their superstitions?"
"Twenty thousand years have not extinguished the power of the Nu-chala-nuth in the Nexus," said Hatch. "If we prosecute a pogrom against the Yara here in Dalar ken Halvar, then we will make problems for ourselves and for the whole of the Nexus. The Yara must be free to worship the Way if they so choose."
So spoke Hatch, though the pogrom he feared was not a killing of the Yara but a killing of the Frangoni.
Lupus knew as much.
"You have the whip-hand for the moment," said Lupus, in momentary concession, "but don't think you can keep it forever."
That of course was not the end of Lupus Lon Oliver's dissent.
When Startroopers and Combat Cadets – past and present – were packed into Forum Three and queued in the corridors outside, then Lupus made a strident effort to denounce and dethrone Asodo Hatch. Hatch was a barbarian, a murderer, a cheat, a fraud, a shyster. He was the son of a suicide. All this said Lupus, and more. But he was brought to order very quickly by General Dorth.
In Forum Three, the general gazed down on Lupus from the main display screen and said:
"Halt! Stop right there! I've heard enough out of you! I am General Dorth of the Nexus and I will not stand for this mutinous talk!"
The figure shown on the display screen, the putative General Dorth, was a big man in a uniform of gray trimmed with silver.
Whereas Paraban Senk had perfect voice control, General Dorth had to struggle from keeping his wrath from breaking into an upperoctave squawk. Hatch thought this was a nice touch of verisimilitude.
"Right now I am speaking by Instantaneous Transmission from Charabanc," said General Dorth. "But in ninety days, when quarantine ends, I will personally be coming to Olo Malan to take control of the planet. At that time I will be relieving Asodo Hatch, and if you fail to give him all due assistance in the meantime then you will personally answer to me for your delinquencies. Do you understand?"
"Yes," said Lupus. "Yes – yes sir."
Lupus had the shaken aspect of a small child whose playtime games have abruptly been interrupted by the encroachments of fullgrown adults. The Ebrell Islander could not help but display a touch of fear, and this to Hatch confirmed the fact that Lupus was a True Believer. He believed the truth of this scenario absolutely.
"So I confirm the appointment of Asodo Hatch as military governor of – of Dara – " Here Dorth broke off, glanced down, as if at a prompt screen hidden out of sight, then got it out and got it right: "Of Dalar ken Halvar."
"It is a great honor," said Hatch stolidly, letting his rivals interpret that stolidness as they might.
"This is only a temporary measure," said General Dorth. "But the fact is that Asodo Hatch is the most senior officer of the Stormforce currently on Olo Malan. As for the rest of you, all Combat Cadets and Startroopers, past and present, you are all to present yourself for a midnight briefing in the Combat College – tonight. Meantime, here is a brief update of what has happened in the Nexus in the last twenty millennia | | "
By the time General Dorth was finished, Lupus Lon Oliver looked positively shellshocked, as well he might. But he was persuaded. The other Free Corps veterans were similarly persuaded.
And so it was that Asodo Hatch left Forum Three with half a hundred troopers of the Free Corps as his guard of honor. They filtered out through the lockway airlock, formed up in the kinema under the gaze of the Eye of Delusions, then set off down Scuffling Road.
Bodyguarding Asodo Hatch, the Free Corps troopers marched through Actus Dorum, marched past the Grand Arena, scaled the heights of Cap Ogo Blotch, and entered the palace of Na Sashimoko.
There in Hall in the heart of the Shrine of Shrines, Asodo Hatch seated himself upon the throne of the Empire of Greater Parengarenga, and declared himself emperor.
"The official title is, of course, military governor," said Hatch. "And I have no objection if members of the Free Corps and others choose to so call me. However, we must remember that the vast mass of the population of Parengarenga consists of ignorant peasants who know nothing of the Nexus, therefore it is fitting that I choose a title which fits their limited conception of the world."
"What now?" said Lupus.
"I have much to do before I join you in the Combat College for the midnight briefing," said Hatch. "The first thing is the Treasurer. Berlin, that's the one. I appoint him my deputy. Bring him here."
"But he's one of these – one of these savages!" protested Lupus. "Your deputy, it – it should be a Free Corps appointment."
"The Free Corps has the whole planet to think about," said Hatch. "The Free Corps are few and the needs of the moment are many. We can't have talented trained men wasting themselves on sorting out the petty bureaucracy of Dalar ken Halvar. Berlin's the man for that. He's not exactly my favorite person, but we can work together, at least in the short term. Lupus, it's hardly an appointment made to gratify my own heart, is it?"
That ended that argument, for it was common knowledge that Asodo Hatch did indeed have good reason to hate Nambasa Berlin, the noseless Treasurer who had ever maintained a gross prejudice against the "purple filth" of the Frangoni rock – which prejudice was consequent upon the circumstances surrounding the loss of his nose.
Nambasa Berlin was brought from the closely-watched imprisonment in which he had been kept since being overthrown by a coup launched by Imperial Guards and Free Corps troopers. Berlin was briefed, and absorbed the news of the opening of the Chasm Gates with an uncommon degree of calm. But then – Berlin had been expecting to be executed, and in the face of death all lesser shocks lose their power to disconcert.
Thus it was that Hatch seized control, bloodlessly, and worked throughout the day to consolidate that control. He sought out people like Berlin who were competent, who were accustomed to the exercise of power, who knew their jobs and who were not aligned with the Free Corps. These Hatch placed in positions of trust, so by evening he had a skeleton administration in place.
Late at night, when he was sure that almost all the Free Corps people were safe within the Combat College – and soon to be sealed into that College and held there as prisoners – Asodo Hatch presided over a meeting of selected Frangoni in the palace of Na Sashimoko.
The meeting took place in Na Sashimoko's map room, where there was a big table on which it was possible to assemble largescale maps showing (or at least purporting to show) the geography of the entire empire. As wizards have a great love of maps, and as the Silver Emperor known to the world as Plandruk Qinplaqus had been a wizard of Ebber (and was a wizard of Ebber still, assuming that he still lived), a great deal of love had been spent on the elaborations of this map room. It had leather-upholstered seats sufficient for all the Frangoni who came to sit at that big table.
Hatch's elder brother Oboro Bakendra was at that meeting.
So was Son'sholoma Gezira, the apostate Frangoni who had once offended Hatch by accosting him on the Frangoni rock, and by asking him to assist in teaching the doctrines of Nu-chala-nuth.
Hatch at the time had been shocked. Hatch had thought the preaching of the doctrines of Nu-chala-nuth would be a disaster for his city, his people and the empire he served. But here he was! Asodo Hatch! Masquerading as the deputy of the Nu-chala of Borboth! Here he was, Asodo Hatch, seeking to secure the city of Dalar ken Halvar for the Nu-chala-nuth, to unleash the forces of an intolerant militant religion, and to use that religion as a weapon against his enemies.
And, as Hatch waited for the Frangoni at the meeting to settle to order, he found himself appalled at the future which was opening in front of him. But what else could he do? Surrender Dalar ken Halvar to Lupus Lon Oliver and the Free Corps? Let Manfred Gan Oliver and his son Lupus gather the strength they needed to launch a pogrom against the Frangoni?
"Well?" said Oboro Bakendra, looking hard at his younger brother. "Are you ready to enlighten us? To tell us what's really going on here?"
"Ah, what do you think's going on here?" said Hatch.
"I don't know," said Oboro Bakendra. "But the very fact that this meeting is taking place suggests something foul afoot. You and me, what have we got to say to each other? You need something from me, brother, but I can't see that you'd need anything at all from me if the Chasm Gates really had opened. If the Nexus really had reclaimed us. If you had suddenly been bounced to sainthood, a saint beloved of the Nu, a saint in his purple graces – well, is a poor and barbarous Frangoni worshipper of the Great God Mokaragash to sit at table with the Nu-chala's deputy?"
Hatch forced himself not to flinch from the whiplash in his brother's voice.
"Brother mine," said Hatch, "I had to make a choice. The Frangoni under the Nu-chala-nuth or the Frangoni under the Free Corps. There was no third way."
With that said, Hatch looked around at the assembled Frangoni. Some were slow on the uptake, but it was obvious that most were absorbing the implications of his words.
"So," said Son'sholoma slowly, "you've – you've – what have you done, Hatch? You've schemed up – well, Senk must be in on it.
And the whole thing, this – this – it's a charade, is it? The Chasm Gates, the – oh, Hatch, I really believed! How could you – this whole – is this but a ploy to win a war with the Free Corps?"
"I have at stake the lives of my people," said Hatch stolidly. "All of my people, not excepting my wife and my daughter."
Then Hatch detailed the truth of their situation for his fellow Frangoni, ending by saying:
"So, it being now about midnight, the Free Corps is held prisoner by Paraban Senk. Senk will hold the Free Corps for long enough for me to consolidate my rule in Dalar ken Halvar. I will consolidate that rule by uniting the city under the banner of Nuchala-nuth."
"That," said his brother Oboro Bakendra, "still leaves the fate of the Frangoni undecided."
"I will give my people what protection I can," said Hatch.
"But if we are to unite Dalar ken Halvar as a city of the Nuchala-nuth, then it follows that the Frangoni must necessarily take that religion as their own."
"I'd rather die," said Oboro Bakendra.
"Then you will die," said Hatch flatly. And, as his brother half-rose from the table: "And if you kill me here, then you and all Frangoni will die of a certainty. The Yara are using the night to arm themselves against any possible change in their political fortunes. The Unreal are organizing themselves, my brother. I am their head for the moment, but whether I can remain so is something that remains to be seen."
Oboro Bakendra seated himself, but glowered, and said:
"You really are riding a tiger. What happens if you fall off?
You persuaded Paraban Senk to your cause. But what if Lupus Lon Oliver unpersuades him? What you have done against Lupus, Lupus can do against you. You tell me that Senk won't let out the Free Corps troopers until they're ready to swear their loyalty to you, but who could trust oaths given under such duress? And as for the Frangoni, our own people – how long will we last? The Yara hate us, the Yara are of the Pang, the Pang are the Pang, Real and Unreal alike, they're one people and we're another. Once this Chasm Gate illusion is a thing of the past, Hatch, the Pang will push you off your throne in a few days or less, the
y're the majority, they'll want one of their own to rule."
All this said Oboro Bakendra, and more. Hatch listened, then said, heavily:
"Everything you have said is true. The Frangoni are a minority. At the moment I rule by illusion, but we will need more than that in the future. I cannot trust the Free Corps so I must destroy the Free Corps. The Pang have no reason to like or trust the Frangoni, so we must give them a reason. We must destroy the Free Corps in the name of Nu-chala-nuth. We the Frangoni."
"Nu-chala-nuth!" said Oboro Bakendra.
He used the word just as Lupus Lon Oliver had used it earlier – as an obscenity.
"By so destroying the Free Corps," said Hatch, pursuing the ruthless logic of his politics to its conclusion, "we the Frangoni write ourselves into the religious history of this planet. We the Frangoni become the people who destroyed the enemies of Nu-chalanuth at a time when that religion was weak.
"We.
"Not the Pang.
"The people Pang, the Yara, the Unreal, they made a revolution in the name of Nu-chala-nuth, but they failed, they failed absolutely. They failed the god to whom they gave nothing but a fleeting lipservice backed up by no more than a transitory spasm of rioting. But we, we the Frangoni, we through our armed discipline smash the enemies of Nu-chala-nuth, install the True God, and thus write ourselves into history forever. We write ourselves into history in blood."
So spoke Asodo Hatch, giving way to that love of rhetoric and speeches which ever characterizes the Frangoni. Then Asodo Hatch looked on his brother Oboro Bakendra and said:
"Brother mine, we the Frangoni, in Dalar ken Halvar our fate is fragile. We are few, the Pang are many. We are not of this place, we are not of this city. We must consecrate our relationship with the Pang with the blood of battle. We must write ourselves into the holy history of Nu-chala-nuth to make our people inviolate. We must become the holy ones, the beloved of god, or else – well, you were the one who said it. Unless we can secure our position, our fate is to be destroyed. Make your choice, my brother."
