I said formally, “I greet you, Magister.”
I felt the mind-touch. A warm affection, the gelid caress of the fluids in Gret’s tank, a ghostly image of the blazing, colored life-auras by which the Vulk “saw.” I realized that I was “seeing” myself, a feeble reflection of the coruscating figure in my old teacher’s mind. It was a familiar experience, but always an eerie one.
“I have been expecting you,” Gret said.
“I would have come sooner, but there were problems.” The Vulk was too old and feeble to be plagued with my troubles with the Fleet, with Lady Nora, and all the rest of it.
But, of course, he knew about all of it. A Vulk was never isolated--not as long as another of his kind was within range of the remarkable powers of his mind.
“When I learned of it, Kier,” Gret said, “I sent Erit to Gonlan.”
I was touched and disturbed, as well. In recent years it had not been Gret’s way to send his sister-wife, the younger Erit, a-roaming--even to gather information. They, the two of them, had spent millennia roving space in the service of the Rhad family, and now they had come to the time of taking their ease as Royal Vulk and his consort. So Gret must have been deeply worried to send Erit to Gonlan, where the warlocks were gathering to decide what must be done about the alien from the black starship.
“You should not have sent her away from you, Magister,” I said respectfully. “The troubles will resolve themselves.”
“Not these troubles, my young friend.” Gret’s thoughts, perfectly clear and disciplined, murmured in my mind.
“Your sister-wife is at the university?” I asked.
“She is with the warlocks,” Gret replied. “They could not deny her.” Even today, there is prejudice against the Vulk, and in some places among the Inner Nations, a Vulk would not be permitted on the scene of sensitive and secret investigations. But in Rhada, no one would exclude the Vulk Erit, who was consort to the tutor of the nation’s royal princes. “The warlocks are going to attempt to revive the alien girl you brought to Rhada. They ask that Erit attempt to probe her mind--if she survives the awakening.”
I said directly, then, what had been troubling me for days now. “The starship Ariane and I discovered in Delphinus--it is a doomsday machine, isn’t it?”
“I believe it to be one,” Gret said.
I cast about the chamber, suddenly tormented by the threat brought into the Empire by my rashness. “But why, Gret? And who? Who would build such a machine? It would take the resources of a star system and a lifetime. And for what? To build something so destructive is madness. Even in war, such a ship would--” I broke off, unable to find words to express my bafflement.
“--be useless,” Gret finished for me. “Yes, I know.”
“Then who? Why?”
“I cannot answer that. But perhaps Erit will, when the alien is awakened.”
I thought of the silver-eyed girl in the capsule, and then I remembered the way the Delphinus star had vaporized. In the heart of the galaxy, it was still expanding, scouring life from its quadrant of space. And the warmen at the Fleet commo station on the Sigma Libra planet--what had they thought when their sky began to bum?
“Your Lady Mother is certain that the starship attacked Sigma Libra. She relishes the idea,” Gret said disapprovingly.
“Is there any doubt?”
“None. It was the starship, without question.”
“Then Lady Nora--” I began defensively.
Gret cut me off. “She is a noblewoman, is Lady Nora. She lives in the past.” I felt the Vulk’s dry tolerance. “As you do, young Starkahn, as you do. But there’s a difference. You dream of past glories. She would use present horror to bring back those past glories she so relishes.”
The Lady of Rhada might be proud, but she was no monster, and I said so, angrily.
“Forgive me, Starkahn,” Gret said. “It is that I have seen so much pain and grief come from ambition. Your mother wants the black starship to remain a mystery, a larger-than-life fear. You--and only you have been aboard it. What greater heroism can there be? You know how the Rim loves personal bravery. The Royalists are delighted with you.”
“I wouldn’t have it so if I had a choice, Magister,” I said humbly. “I am no star king.”
“Perhaps so, perhaps not,” the Vulk said. “But what is far more important than our small politics here in the hinterlands is the fact that a doomsday machine is loose in the galaxy. If the next Delphinus or Sigma Libra should be one of the Inner Nations--billions could die.”
“That is why I’ve come to you,” I said. “I must go to Gonlan--?”
“And do what?”
I shrugged helplessly. “I hoped you could guide me, Magister.”
Gret said, “There is a priest among the warlocks at Gonlanburg.”
I saw nothing strange in that. The Order of Navigators would naturally be interested in the alien girl.
“A Navigator named Peter. Peter of Syrtis. Have you heard of this man?”
It happened that I did, for Peter of Syrtis was the author of a number of shockingly prejudiced books on pre-imperial solar history. He had earned his name for his habit of making retreats on the barren and almost uninhabitable deserts of Sol’s fourth planet. “Earth’s wretched sister,” he called it. Others called it simply Mars, and it was the home monastery of the Zealots, a subcult among the Navigators dedicated to a return of autocratic clerical power. To the blindly faithful, the Zealots promised paradise. To the heretic, the agnostic, and the freethinker, they held out the whip and the rack and the auto-da-fé.
As a historian I knew what a return to the days of the Grand Inquisitor Talvas would mean to the Empire. As a man, I shuddered at the thought. The Zealots were few, but they had friends in high places. And I had been taught to mistrust bigots. I had no desire to see the scarlet-robed Inquisitors loose once again in the galaxy.
“That fanatic is at Gonlanburg?” I exclaimed. “I wonder the warlocks don’t pitch him into the sea!”
“He is there as personal emissary of the Grand Master of Navigators.”
“I can’t believe it.”
“You had better believe it, Starkahn. It is true.”
“But Nav Peter is something out of the past. He’s a savage. He’s religion gone crazy. Surely we are not to have a witch-hunt in this day and age?”
“Erit says that Nav Peter is authorized to take the alien to Algol, to the Theocracy, when the warlocks have revived her.”
“But that’s insane, Magister!” I said heatedly. “What will the Navigators do with her?”
“Our present Grand Master Briffault rules over a diminished Order, Kier. The Navigators have done their part for civilization, and they are not content now to rest and be forgotten. I can’t answer your question because no one knows the mind of the high churchmen. But if Peter of Syrtis is the chosen instrument of the Navigators’ policy, I fear for more than the alien creature’s life and well-being.”
“The Galacton is removing the alien from our keeping?”
“He would not take her from the Rhad for himself,” Gret said, wearily wise to the ways of men. “But who could object to her being given into the keeping of the clergy?”
“I wouldn’t believe it of Sokolovsky,” I exclaimed angrily. “He was a Fleet commander, soldier of the Empire, before he became a politician--Would he give up the girl while that hell ship is still loose in the Empire?”
“He would and he will. You touched the truth yourself just now when you called Sokolovsky a politician. To be Galacton is, a priori, to be a politician, and expedient. Above all, expedient. Our Galacton was once Elector of Bellatrix, Kier. He knows the way of the mob. And the mob wants no part of a doomsday machine in their midst--not even a single alien girl from it.”
“But turning the girl over to the Zealots isn’t going to make that black horror go away,” I protested. “She is the key to the black starship, and without her there is no chance of our controlling it.”
&nb
sp; “That’s so. But Sokolovsky and the Zealots as well are convinced that the law of averages is against a blind strike hitting an inhabited star system,” Gret said.
“But that’s crazy! That thing isn’t programmed to attack stars at random. It couldn’t be. It wouldn’t make any sense at all.”
“Correct, my young pupil,” Gret said. “I have an idea of what logic, if any, the craft is going to follow. But I cannot be sure. There is much to search out before I can guess. One thing, however, must be done at once.” The small, naked figure stirred in the gel and, for the first time, spoke aloud: “Erit must be allowed to work with the alien alone. So that this will be possible, when the warlocks wake the girl, you must steal her, Starkahn.”
I stood openmouthed, not crediting the evidence of my ears.
“Do you think there is any other way?” Gret asked.
“I--why--I didn’t think--” I shook my head. “I don’t know, Magister.”
“It must be done. At the risk of making you into an even bigger hero to the Royalists--it must be done,” Gret said. “The warlocks will attempt the revivification very soon. Since you are not a medic, there is no way we can arrange for you to be present. How even I sometimes yearn for the old times, Kier! Two hundred years ago there would have been no one to prevent your doing whatever you pleased. But then, two hundred years ago no Zealot would have dared set foot in a Rhadan city, let alone our university center. In any case, Kier, the alien must not reach Syrtis--”
“Mars? I thought Nav Peter was under orders to take her to Algol?”
“Perhaps so. But I would wager my life--what is left of it--on the fact that Peter the Zealot would take her to Syrtis Major and not to the Grand Master in Algol. He sees himself as another pope, I think. Perhaps as Pope and Galacton as well. Think of that, Kier. If he has luck, he could do it. And we would all bow head and knee to a Navigator’s tyranny while we wait for that black monster to snuff out our suns, one by one--?”
“Can Erit reach Ariane?”
A thin smile touched the lips of the creature in the gel. “It has been done. Remember they are both women, and females are schemers at heart.” His love for Erit was like a tangible aura in the chamber.
I picked up the Vulk’s ancient lyre and brushed my fingertips across the strings, remembering that Gret had taught me to play it himself, as he had taught me many things. No, there would be no return to the Dark Time if I could prevent it.
“I’ll be off-world by tonight,” I said.
“Yes,” Gret said sibilantly. He sounded suddenly tired, worn out by his talk with me. “Yes, it is what you will do,” he said. “You are the Rebel’s descendant, I am content.” And then, relaxing almost into slumber, I felt his control loosen. He was dreaming, in that waking-dream state of the old of every breed and kind. And I saw him--I rode with him--through the gates of Nyor while the war mares chanted. I saw the ancient starships rising from the Gonlan Sea and the mounted warbands riding through the forests and mountains with star kings and Navigators at their heads. I even caught a glimpse of the greatest king, Glamiss the Magnificent, who came down from Vyka in the northern galactic wasteland to Earth, raising again the flags and banners over Nyor, Mistress of the Skies--
“I am dreaming, Starkahn,” Gret whispered. “What a great thing is history--how beautiful and terrible is the past--”
And with that thought echoing in my mind, I put the lyre carefully down by the tank and went quietly from the room to steal a silver-eyed girl.
Chapter Six
And sin said to man, “Make you Cyb in your image, after your likeness: and give him dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the Earth---I, sin, command this, that man’s days may be numbered.”
From The Book of Warls,
Interregnal period.
And WHEREAS: Cybernetic Organisms have a long tradition of service to the Empire and to mankind; and WHEREAS: Certain vital works of the Empire and man could not be accomplished without the skill, goodwill, and courage of the aforementioned Cybernetic Organisms; Let it THEREFORE BE RESOLVED by the SENATE and GENERAL ASSEMBLY of THE EMPIRE, that Cybernetic Organisms ARE, now and for all time, CITIZENS of THE EMPIRE and entitled to all the PRIVILEGES and subject to all the DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES thereto pertaining....
Excerpt from the Galactic Rescript of 7000 GE,
late Second Stellar Empire period
“Remember, Starkahn, that I, too, am a citizen of the Empire,” Ariane said positively. “I leave it to your sense of fair play to assign me a suitable role in the upcoming fiasco.” She had extended her drogue through the airlock into my apartment in the Coral Sands Hostel. The rest of her vast bulk floated in neutral buoyancy outside my room two hundred meters from the sea bottom and twice that from the surface of Zodiac Bay.
Gonlan’s mascons are grouped near the polar regions, so gravity is slightly lower than the equator, where the best diving is to be found. Zodiac Bay, an inlet of the Gonlan Sea, is a basin of fine blue water alive with fish and the varied sea mammals of Gonlan. The Coral Sands Hostel is a favorite vacation place for tourists from the galactic center and for Rim-born personnel of the Fleet on leave.
ADSPS cyborgs, in particular, like to spend their leaves in Zodiac Bay playing manta. Their shape predisposes them to the sea, of course. And at Zodiac Bay the human members of the survey teams can obtain cryogenic rebreather implants so that they can disport themselves with their cyborgs at any depth down to seven hundred meters. The psychologists tell us that there is something soothing about a return to the sea, this being apparently true for both man and cyb, who after all was made, as the Warls tell us, in man’s image.
So I was resting in my sea quarters: a room built of corals, damp and smelling deliciously of sea. I say deliciously because my implanted “lung” relished the salty moisture of the air and the pelagic flavor that permeated every part of the vast coral warren. And as I rested from the trip from Rhada and from the sea trip aboard the hover-craft to the marker buoy and then the deep dive to the hostel, I listened to Ariane tell me what she had learned from Erit of what was happening in the laboratories of the University of Gonlanburg.
I said, “You don’t have to remind me that you are a citizen, Ariane. I suggested only that it might be better if you stayed out of the misdemeanor I’m planning. Even a cyborg can be reprogrammed if the offense is great enough.”
“You’re risking it.” Ariane spoke reproachfully. “Should I do less? I thought we were friends.”
“We are,” I said. “And don’t get bristly with me and start quoting me chapter and verse about your civil rights. I know the law as well as you do. That’s the problem. You’ve already involved yourself in too much. Before we’ve done, I may be in front of a court martial or even an ecclesiatical synod. We haven’t had a heresy trial in the Empire for a thousand years, but this just might be the time. You’ve heard of Peter of Syrtis.”
“Peter the Hermit. Peter the Idiot. I know all about him,” Ariane said. “A fanatic. He can’t possibly give us trouble.”
“He’s the Grand Master’s personal nuncio to Gonlanburg. The warlords will treat him very carefully indeed. He has the Galacton’s authority, as well.”
“All the more reason for me to get into this. How did you plan to get off-world with the girl? Even assuming you could get to her and get her away from the university?”
“I hadn’t thought of that yet,” I said.
“Ah, Kier. What would you do without me--or Lady Nora--or someone to look out for you?” Ariane asked, womanlike. I could feel the coral tremble as she moved her fifteen metric tons restlessly outside the tower. A lovely swirl of bubbles and fishes stormed past the windows in the blue-green sea light.
“Ariane,” I said. “All my earlier objections still stand. It is my responsibility. Gret agrees with that, by the way. The alien is the key to the starship. There will be no controlling the ship wit
hout the girl. But--”
“No buts. You cannot succeed without me. Ergo, I must participate. What is our program?”
“Where is Erit?”
“At Gonlanburg. She will contact me when the alien is revived. I should say--if.”
I thought about the beautiful girl floating in the life-support capsule and decided that I wanted very much for the warlocks to revive her. And only a part of my hope was concerned with our chances of catching up with--and neutralizing--her deadly doomsday machine.
“The Gonlani-Rhad warlocks are the best on the Rim,” I said. “If the thing can be done--if there is any scientific hope--then it will be done.”
“So Erit says,” Ariane murmured. “But what then, Starkahn? How do we spirit an alien being out of the laboratories? And what do we do with her then?”
“The last part I can answer right away. We take her to Gret. He and Erit can put her in Triad. At least the mystery will be solved. What happens next is anybody’s guess. Lady Nora wants to use this incident, as she calls it, to build support for the Rhadan royalists . . .“
“I am deeply attached to you and to Lady Nora as well,” Ariane said severely. “But I don’t approve of royalist plots. It’s archaic to think of bringing back the Rhadan monarchy.”
I smiled ruefully at that, though I couldn’t have agreed with her more. “Well, no matter. We’ll face that problem when the time is right for it,” I said. “The important thing is being ready to take the alien the moment the warlocks bring her around. We can’t wait. Not only might Nav Peter take her off to Algol or Mars or somewhere--we don’t know what her powers may be. We will have to take her before she regains all her faculties.”
“What a man creature you really are, Kier,” Ariane said in a disapproving tone. “I would never have thought about that.”
I wanted to leave the hostel at once and penetrate the university grounds. I could do that because of my reputation as an amateur historian and because I was the Starkahn. But Ariane would have none of it. Erit was watching the warlocks, and she would say when we should move. Meanwhile, Ariane declared, it was important that she and I should appear to be nothing more than a human-cyborg survey team on holiday, diving in the crystalline waters of the Gonlan Sea.
The Starkahn of Rhada Page 5
