Kerrender went on: ‘The error was in two things: one, the way I was taught to speak, about which I can do little-’ his Kreld-sharp senses saw them relax even more; he was gaining status—’the other, the way I reacted, which was wrong, but the bases of this lie deep. It is not always possible to curb such a reaction in the stark necessity of the moment.’
He bowed. ‘Senors, for this I can only accept the responsibility and apologize profoundly.’
Both sides knew this would not restore life to the dead, or health to broken limbs, but these were people of a tradition which respected nobility, even from an enemy. The gesture was irresistible.
That gun crew descended to the ground and responded to his courtesy, bowing. He had done what he could to heal the communications breach. But he knew there was still a price to be paid. And deep within, Kerrender groaned silently.
For on Rawn died the Thirty Thousand...
And the ripples of that original terrible fact kept spreading outwards.
In his mind’s eye, he saw the legend which was cut into the stone above the entrance to the Hall of Truth on Rawn: Abandon vanity all ye who enter here. Step out of the snare of illusion, though the way be long.
And he heard again the voice of Alarish, his mentor, as he had heard it so often during his years on Rawn:
‘Kerrender, O Kerrender, how many times must I remind you? You are no longer a high-born aristocrat of the Empire. You gave all that up when you came here to study with us. Humble yourself before the inner truth, and that truth shall make you free. But the first step is to abandon vanity. You must yield up that bone-bred pride that family and Empire have conditioned into you almost from birth. I know it’s difficult; it’s probably more difficult for you than for anybody who ever came here. But it’s no less essential.’
And vanity was still his undoing, even here on Cervantes, he realized, as the leader of the gun crew stepped forward.
‘Honour demands a settlement, senor,’ he said, simply, and Kerrender could only nod. He must be here until morning in any event.
‘My name is Rodriguez. And I claim the satisfaction of a duello with flame-whips.’
Flame-whips? They saw he didn’t understand.
The Cervantean spread wide his hands.
‘We are cattlemen, senor, as were our forebears. We herd our cows in the old way with electronically-charged flame-whips. For the duello between caballeros, they are turned up to the killing-point.’
Kerrender saw the jaws of Nemesis closing upon him again. The star shells burst in his mind as desperation almost overwhelmed him, but the stark reality remained and it said: no way out.
Unless-
He indicated the small black mark high on his forehead that was pulsing madly.
‘Senor,’ he said in a voice suddenly hoarse, ‘look upon this symbol. It bears an important message.’
All the Cervanteans looked at that pulsing black mark the High Ones of Rawn had set upon Kerrender’s forehead, and these words formed in their minds:
‘To all who would place this man in a mortal situation—be warned. You stand in the presence of one of the most dangerous beings in this galaxy! As you value life and limb, never force him to use or respond to destructive energy of any kind. We, the High Ones of Rawn, warn you most solemnly: you stand in the presence of Death.’
Even on a backward planet such as this, they had heard of the High Ones of Rawn. The Veridish Empire’s planet of wisdom, Rawn had stood like a beacon-light upon the shores of their perceptions. But the Empire was coming down about their ears, its death-cries echoing to the assaults of the Rengol barbarians, and its crumbling threatened to carry With it all vestiges of a civilization that had lasted fifty thousand years. Chilled by that dread pronunciamento they were, but intimidated—no longer!
The Cervanteans looked their scepticism. Their leader gazed with surprise and the contempt of a man who has been disappointed in what he thought to be a noble enemy.
The star shells bursting within him, Kerrender recognized that contempt. He had made the gesture. But it was no use; the old respect, and the fear of reprisal that had always accompanied it, were gone. Anything that smacked of the Empire was now a thing suspect.
‘Show me where you would hold this duello,’ he said.
Two aircars were brought from a hangar. With a pilot, Kerrender entered one; the second was occupied by Rodriguez and his pilot.
Lifting from the spacefield with tremendous noise—they were powered by rickety, ancient rockets—the two cars headed out across the plateau towards nearby mountains. Twenty minutes later they descended upon a large open space under the peaks. Not quite a pleateau, it was still large enough for manoeuvring.
The first purple light of dawn softened the sky as they issued from the aircars with their flame-whips. It was still too dark for the duello, so the group sat near the cars, watching the sun come up. It was a G-type star, somewhat smaller than Kerrender’s own Valgor.
As they waited, he of Rawn said, softly: ‘You witnessed my speed back there during the fight?’
Rodriguez’ eyes revealed his fear.
‘I saw,’ he said, slowly. ‘But honour demands a reckoning, senor.’
Kerrender understood: the inexorable necessity of his proud background made backing down unthinkable.
At that moment, he liked the Cervantean very much. He said: ‘My reflexes shall be as close to your own as possible.’
Appreciation was warm in the other’s dark brown eyes.
The purple light became stronger. It was time.
They stood, flicking their whips experimentally. Kerrender’s companion of the aircar took the flame-whip and showed him the motions of the wrist involved.
The tall man’s Kreld-trained perceptions instantly assimilated the data. He took the flame-whip from the other and at once demonstrated a mastery that made the Cervantean’s eyes big.
Positioning themselves twenty metres apart—the full reach of both whips—they waited, Rodriguez tense, Kerrender relaxed. Standing to one side, the Cervantean from Kerrender’s aircar took a bright red bandana from his pocket, holding it high. Then he brought it down with sudden finality.
As he did so, Rodriguez’ whip lashed with expertness at the tall man’s head. But his Kreld-trained perceptions had noted the bunching of the muscles: when the whip-end flashed blue fire, Kerrender was safely out of reach. His own flame-whip cracked at Rodriguez, who barely evaded.
The pilots retreated to their machines, lifting them into the air to watch the duello safely.
Kerrender fought to the accompaniment of bursting star shells and the mad background music of the communicators. Like a second reality striving to assert its primacy, the night-black sky of Rawn in its moment of truth superimposed itself upon the purple morning light of a planet called Cervantes, and the nightmare within Kerrender waxed like a floodtide.
On Rawn died the Thirty Thousand...
Then another awareness invaded Kerrender’s consciousness, edging out his nightmare. The unmistakable sensation of many spaceships planeting. The sort of perception only a Kreld-trained spaceman could have received. The Rengol attack force had arrived.
This was what he had been waiting for. There was no more time to waste. Flicking the flame-whip a little faster, he caught Rodriguez’s whip handle with his own. The killing power was muted. A sudden, bluish flash, the strong odour of ozone, and Rodriguez’s unconscious body hit the ground. At least, he hadn’t had to kill a brave man.
The aircars descended. Kerrender jumped into his, while the other pilot retrieved Rodriguez. Then they were flashing back to the spacefield.
Kerrender’s pilot seemed worried. His Galactic slurred, he said:
‘Senor, there’s trouble at the field. Barbarians have landed-’
Kerrender nodded. ‘The Rengol attack force. I warned you they were coming last night.’
The pilot’s dark features were heavy with dread.
‘What can we do?’
&nbs
p; Kerrender glanced at him, surprised.
‘Do? There’s nothing you can do. You have nothing here to stand a chance against a full Rengol attack force.’ He looked grimly ahead. ‘They’re not here to take Cervantes, in any event. They’ve come for me.’
The pilot glanced again at Kerrender.
‘A full attack force just for you?’ he whispered.
Kerrender said no more, but a strange fierce light glinted in his amber eyes.
When they came in over the spacefield, the tall man saw the landing-craft of the Rengols ringing it at a fifty metre height. He smiled. As the pilot saw that smile, he shuddered.
The other reality within Kerrender waxed with the flare of the star shells and the dis-guns in Rawn’s night-black sky. But he thrust it away with icy self-control.
His towering figure stepped majestically from the aircar. He walked slowly towards the waiting group beside the tavern, towards Cervanteans and Rengol officers in their bright green field uniforms. The Rengols were porcine mutants from the Empire’s edge. They stood, on average, about five feet.
The biggest—he was closer to six feet—stepped forward. His black button eyes were angry, the warrior’s crest erect upon his head.
The Rengol demanded: ‘Where is the Keridish battle squadron we were to meet here?’
Kerrender’s face was expressionless, but the amber eyes flamed.
‘It stands before you, Rengol.’
The mutant’s eyes blazed dangerously.
‘What kind of jest is this?’
The black mark on Kerrender’s forehead was pulsing with insistence. He pointed to it.
‘No jest. Listen to the warning of the High Ones of Rawn.’
The brutish-looking officer roared: ‘We have heard of this so-called warning, you snarbatch! And accord it no more attention that it deserves. For your insolence—prepare to die!’
He leaped backwards, spoke into a wrist communicator. The Rengol officers activated opalescent force screens as their landing crafts’ big dis-guns zeroed in on Kerrender.
On Rawn died the Thirty Thousand.... And now on Cervantes—a reckoning?
The dis-guns thundered. Kerrender’s tall form was spotlighted in the unbearable intensity of the beams. But his body didn’t burst into its constituent atoms. Lifting slowly into the air, his body floated in a horizontal position, while a fantastic turbulence swirled about it.
Like the centre of some extraordinary whirlpool, Kerrender bent the unthinkable energy of the dis-guns around him, to spin their raging beams faster and faster.
Within him there was no pain. It had been like this on Rawn during the final attack when they used all their energy weapons—an exalted sensation of his own strength, and of his unique talent. The High Ones of Rawn had told him of this early in his training, and then, when the Rengols unleashed their full-scale bombardment, Kerrender used it as he had always known he must.
As he did again at this moment.
He bent the energy around him while its intensity pyramided—Then threw it back upon its senders.
This time there was no backlash as there had been when he was still new to his powers.
The Rengol landing-craft were blasted out of the air by their own dis-beams. But it didn’t stop there; a ravening energy-tide shot up out of the atmosphere, seeking the battle fleet in orbit. From dreadnought, to cruiser, to destroyer, it flashed like a forest fire out of control, until there was nothing but atom-blasted wreckage.
Thirty seconds it took. A Rengol task force of thirty thousand and three hundred ships—obliterated. The only survivors, half a dozen ashen-faced officers near the tavern.
Kerrender of Rawn advanced towards them.
Face pale, he said: ‘Now you know. But do you understand?’
They gaped at him with utter incomprehension.
‘Of course, you don’t. Who could? When I trained with the High Ones of Rawn, they discovered I had a strange talent: I can take an energy beam of any strength and twist it around myself, pyramiding its intensity until it reaches a critical point. Then I hurl it back upon its senders.’
The Cervanteans stared at him in open-mouthed surprise.
The big Rengol who had talked to him earlier started to show signs of returning intelligence.
It was time to wind things up. Kerrender took off his Saltrun cloak. Beneath was the scarlet field tunic of a senior officer of the Keridish Navy.
He asked: ‘Whom do I address?’
The green uniformed mutant looked startled. ‘Why, I’m Major-General Keritsov of Rengol Marines.’
‘And I, by special decree of my Emperor, am Kerrender, late of Rawn—now a seven-star Admiral in the Keridish Navy. I have Special Envoy’s powers and am ready to receive the unconditional surrender of all Rengol forces operating in the Empire. Has your General Headquarters observed this?’
The porcine mutant nodded. ‘It has. They were curious when we received the intelligence that a unit of the Keridish
Navy would meet us here in battle. As you know-’ he looked embarrassed—’your Navy has been avoiding any such contact for the last month.’
Kerrender said: ‘Correct. They have declined battle, as ordered, until I could be deployed to engage you. The war is over, Keritsov. There’s nothing in the known universe that can destroy me. I stand ready to accept your unconditional surrender as an emissary of the Rengol Navy. The documents can be signed later by our diplomats.’
The Rengol consulted his wrist communicator. Then he looked up at Kerrender and nodded.
‘My General Staff agrees. They have conferred on me Extraordinary Envoy’s powers to formalize the surrender, as of this date. Our military forces are now being recalled and have been instructed not to give battle to any Keridish forces they may encounter. A special ship is being dispatched from our nearest base to pick up my group.’
Kerrender nodded. ‘Good.’ Then, turning to the watching Cervanteans, he said:
‘Senors, I would appreciate your refuelling my ship while we wait. You will be reimbursed by the Keridish Navy.’
One of the Cervanteans darted away.
Kerrender and Keritsov talked over the arrangements concerning their respective forces until the main guidelines had been established. The Rengol was cooperative and almost likeable now that hostilities were over. Finally, he looked at Kerrender, said slowly:
‘Your dreadful talent will not have to be used again, Admiral. Do you plan to relinquish your Navy status now and return to the planet of wisdom?’
Kerrender’s eyes were amber pools of agony. ‘I can never return to Rawn, Keritsov. It’s a blasted cinder. The Thirty Thousand High Ones were destroyed when I smashed your attack force.’
The Rengol officer was puzzled. ‘I don’t understand.’
The space-dark sky of Rawn superimposed itself upon his vision and the star shells burst again as they would for Kerrender until the day he died.
In a dead voice, he said: ‘This is the terrible responsibility I carry. Not that I destroyed your attack force. That was inescapable necessity. But that all those I held closest were wiped out by the backlash of that energy. You see, I was new to my powers in those days, and couldn’t prevent the backlash.’
He turned, walked slowly across the field to his ship as the Rengol cruiser planeted. Kerrender took off within moments of their departure.
In the far reaches of the galaxy, Kerrender of Rawn’s sliver ship will sometimes be spotted, and those who see him will attempt to do honour to the man who saved an Empire.
But Kerrender, aristocrat and last of the High Ones of Rawn, seldom acknowledges communications.
<
* * * *
MEN OF GOOD VALUE
Christopher Priest
The writer and angle character of this story, although sharing the same name, are not the same, and ‘Men of Good Value’ should not be regarded as a first person story told in the third person. One is tempted to envisage academics of the future studiously enga
ged in literary research coming to conclusions about the writer Chris Priest based on evidence contained in this story on the character Chris Priest. The charm of this conceit would be well appreciated in a society where the media laboured so impartially with partial attitudes.
* * * *
I stood near the edge of the cliff, adopting what I hoped would appear to a casual onlooker to be a literary posture. I had one foot braced against a low rock protruding from the turf, and the other leg straight behind me. My arms were folded and I frowned down intensely, watching the sea breaking white against the rocks at the foot of the cliffs. There was, as far as I knew, no one around, but in solitude one often imagines an unseen watcher and hopes to project an image of oneself for that person. I was intending by my stance to surround myself with an aura of profundity and creativity, dreaming unimaginable dreams while communing with nature. In fact, my feet were damp and I was feeling cold, and I was about to return to the village for a beer or two before lunch.
New Writings in SF 26 - [Anthology] Page 2
