All along the way back to the Holy Court he passed messengers running with the news. Blaise Darnley had attacked here — attacked there — destroyed this place — burned that one…. The smoke of his destructions rose between land and sky almost wherever one looked. So far, he still returned to the ship after each foray. Jory felt that he himself must do whatever he could before Darnley made his base of operations outside Persephone. When that occurred, he knew no further chance of the ship’s leaving planet Valentine would exist, for the invader would by then fully have committed himself to remain.
A familiar but long-unseen face awaited him at the Court — Crammer. The manufacture of the necessary fuel had succeeded, the pettyboat had left its island and was now set down on the northern part of the scrublands, where — for the time being, at least — it would be safe from any attack.
“I wanted to get to see something of the place before we leave, Mr. Cane,” Crammer said. “So Captain Rond let me bring the word while he and Lockharn stayed there with the boat. Locky, he’s tickled silly. All he talks about is how he’s going to pension out and buy that farm.”
Levvis, Mars, Duston and Storm gathered around, unsmiling. They returned Cane’s greetings in subdued tones. Rahan — Little Joe — was there, and so was O-Narra. Her embrace had been brief.
One word kept repeating itself. Jory quoted it now. “ ‘Leave?’ The Captain is ready to leave?”
Crammer nodded, handed Jory the official communiqué which Captain Marrus Rond had given him for delivery. Jory scanned it quickly. It was in the officialese which Rond had reverted to, now that some semblance of the old order was within his reach once more.
But it all was contained in one word —
Leave.
“Mr. Cane,” said Levvis, somberly, “if the Old Man really tries to enforce that order, well, I’m awfully sorry, but I guess there’ll be another mutiny.”
Mars said, “And this time he can have the pettyboat all to himself. Or — well, anyway, I’m not going. Are you?”
Storm, to whom he had spoken, shook his head. “I joined for adventure. Where is there more of it than here? Besides …” His voice trailed away as he turned to take the hand of the young woman who had come up to him, silently.
“Same thing with me, same with Levvis. Same thing with you — isn’t it, Mr. Cane?” Duston asked.
O-Narra said nothing. She just looked at him. And Rahan-Joe said, “A mistake. Rond-Father will not leave us.”
Turning to Crammer, Jory said, “This matter can’t be done via proxy. Tell the Captain that we’ll have to speak to him, personally. Here. No — wait. Don’t put it like that. Say that protocol requires he take personal farewell of King Mukanahan, and that we’ll wait for him here.”
Crammer nodded, slowly. “I’ll tell him, Mr. Cane. But … look. You fellows can do as you like. You been out here all this time, you made contacts, put down roots. I haven’t. I just stayed there on the island, like I was told. Maybe if I’d been in your place — but I wasn’t. So I’m going back. So is Locky, so’s Captain Rond. I don’t know how long it will take is. We’ll have to zigzag, planet-hop, before we get to a Guild ship or installation. But we’ll get back.
“And when we do, we make our report. You know it will have to be a true one — we couldn’t take the chance of faking it and being found out. What happens then? Maybe now, maybe after a while, the Directorate starts looking. Mainly, they’ll be looking for Persephone. And they’ll be looking for Darnley and his men — but they’ll be looking for you, too.” He paused, his next words striking home. “From their point of view there might not be any difference.”
Crammer’s departure left them silent and somber. Then, said Mars, “We could hide out. Maybe they wouldn’t stick around to find us.”
“Maybe,” said Levvis.
“And if they did, maybe they’d just cashier us, cancel pension, turn us loose.”
And, once more, “Maybe.” Nobody voiced what everybody knew — that mutiny or desertion might merit “such penalties and punishment as the court may see fit to direct”; that courts in the past had fired mutineers out the space-locks, marooned them on the lifeless moons of Halcyon beta, sentenced deserters to life in the vast frozen prison camp which was the southern Polar hemisphere of Trismegistus. Rahan-Joe did not know any of this, but he drew close to Levvis and embraced his arm, and some of the women began to weep.
Jory said, “I will talk with Captain Rond. This isn’t a cut-and-dried situation. Maybe I can persuade him to put you … us … on detached duty here, indefinite term.”
Once again someone said, “Maybe …”
The different tone, this time — doubt, warning, menace — brought Jory’s head up with a snap. “I hope no one has ideas of offering any violence to the Commanding Officer,” he said. The others looked at him, and then, silently, the group broke up.
Darnley against everyone, the Dame against all off-planet men, the pettyboat crew against Darnley and the Dame, and now — it seemed — Mars, Storm, Levvis and Duston against Rond and Crammer and Lockharn — and with Jory Cane right in the middle.
• • •
“Why must you go?” O-Narra said, stroking his face. Jory took her hand and kissed it.
In a low, troubled voice, he said, “It is the law, the code we live by. You should know. It isn’t much different from your own.”
She made the gesture of negation. “My own? Code and law? That of the warriors, the Great Ladies? No, Jory, not my own. Not since the day you fired the smoking brand which brought me down and killed my sword. Sword-Narra had a code and a law. O-Narra has neither. She has only Jory.”
They sat in an embrasure in a stone porch extending the length of one of the courtyards. Long crimson lo pods grew from the blue-green leafy trees, and some tiny creature whose skin blended in with leaf and bark sang and trilled in the branches. The air was cool and fresh and smelled a little of wet dust and a little of the spicy odor of the lo pods.
“ ‘The great men rule in equity,’ ” she quoted the ancient old hedge-priestess of the outlaw band to him. “How can this be if you leave us?”
Jory’s smile was wry. He got up, lifted her to her feet. Her pale skin, jade-green eyes, and red-gold hair seemed beautiful beyond his capacity to say her nay. “The rest of the prophecy hasn’t been fulfilled, either. I don’t know, O-Narra. Not yet. But I’m going to find out … not about that old daddy’s tale of a prophecy, but about myself. And what I have to do. Come.”
They walked together through the courts, beautiful from a thousand years of enforced peace, to where Rond awaited them. Crammer was with him. Levvis, Storm, Mars, stood apart. Lockharn was not there. Captain Rond wore a fresh uniform, which bore the golden circles of his rank. He straightened as Jory came up.
“You are out of uniform, First Officer,” he said stiffly. “Sir.”
“However … what is this you have to say to me?”
Jory said it. He asked Rond if they could not stay and assist the people of the Great North Land against the constantly increasing depredations of the mutineers.
“Unfortunately, no,” was his answer. “It is against Guild policy to become embroiled in local affairs, and I could hardly claim in justification that we were trying to regain the main ship. Excuse me — ”
He flicked his finger against the pectoral communicator, raised Lockharn, directed him to start the pettyboat and put her down in the great meadow south of the Holy Court.
“And, Lockharn, go easy. Don’t strain the engines. We have a long, long trip ahead of us. — No, First Officer, I couldn’t permit risking the men, the pettyboat, or Persephone herself. The Directorate may well want to attempt recovery of the main ship, you know. Besides the hull and the engines, the cargo, I believe, is still intact. Six men-of-war with the new force-field units could probably recover her, intact.”
Jory started to play his last card. “Then, sir — ”
Lockharn’s voice broke in. “ — terrible, that�
��s terrible! Captain? Do you know what they’re doing?” He sounded on the verge of tears. “Not only have they burned the crops, those dirty dogs in Persephone, but they’ve poisoned the fields! I can see it! They’ll never bear any more — it’s not right to treat farmland that way!”
“Systemsman, don’t use the communicator unless ordered to.”
“But, Captain — ”
Jory broke in. “Then, sir, since Guild ships will be coming this way, couldn’t you leave the rest of us here on detached duty, indefinite term, as observers? You and Crammer and Lockharn could manage the pettyboat quite well.”
Rond’s look was frosty. “Mr. Cane, you and every other man who has formed a liason knew full well that it had to be of a temporary nature. I cannot — ”
Lockharn’s voice burst out once more, with, “Oh, my God! There won’t be anyone left alive here if this goes on! Ruins, poisoned fields, fire and smoke, all around. And I can see Persephone! Her ramp is down and there’s a whole mob on it, probably getting ready to go out and kill more innocent people!”
Rond ordered him off the air, but the man swept on, unheedingly, describing the devastation on all sides. Then he broke off to say, “Red … miles and miles of it … Oh! They must be out in full force — the septs! This is awful. Blaise will just wipe them out … and even if they won, they’d just put things back like before. That’s not right, either. Every man ought to own his own farm — ”
Rond spoke, sharply, while Lockharn was still speaking, and against the background of a new sound … one which Jory could not identify. Not until both Rond and Lockharn fell silent, not till then did he recognize it; but even before then it made the little hairs on his flesh stand on end.
Harsh, high, flat, and strident, it resolved itself into a voice, a voice saying over and over again, “Attack! Attack! Attack! I order you to attack! Crewmen, off the ramp! Off the ramp! Down on the ground! Do you hear me? Those are my orders! Blaise Darnley’s! Blaise Darnley orders you! Blaise Darnley is God! Attack! Attack! At — ”
Rond, Jory, all the men, were struck silent. The voice had utterly ceased to be human. It was madness incarnate. Rond was the first to recover his voice. “Lockharn!” he cried. “Can you hear me?”
“Yes, sir — ”
“Full speed here! Belay the previous orders — get here as quick as you can and get us out of here before that madman destroys all of us!”
In the silence it seemed to Jory that he could hear and identify the heavy breathing of each individual man. Terrible! Lockharn was correct in that, all right, and in his summing up the choice of evils. No one could wish Darnley victorious, but — supposing the unlikely — that the septs should win, what then? Why, then, back to the rule by the aristocracy of women warriors, rule by sept and fief and high-born, sword-born Lady; the peasants bound to their plow and the servitors to their task, forever, forever, with ceaseless endeavor, toiling for others.
He was interrupted again. The voice had fallen low, narrowed to a thin streak of sound, but still it gave him the horrors. “ ‘Madman’? Who was that? Rond, wasn’t it? Marrus Rond. Mistake to leave you alive. Came here to fix that. No report from you to Guild wanted. Other things here. Place had weak god. Needed strong one. Me. Forget you. Take care of you next. Blaise Darnley. God. Blaise — ”
And then, Lockharn, very soft, very calm, very reasonable. “Now, you see, Captain. I can’t let that go on. Nobody could. I hope you fellows will look out for the farmers, see they get treated right …”
A look of dreadful fright creased Rond’s face. “Lockharn!” he cried. “What are you trying to do? Don’t — ”
“Watch out, Bosun. I’m coming to get you.”
Rond shouted, Blaise screamed, Lockharn spoke softly. The pettyboat came into view, high, far — away. Then all sound was cut off. The communicators seemed dead. Silently, up from the horizon, the Persephone hove into view. She went straight up, hovered. Jory, Rond, and every man, reached for his farseer. The great ship’s ramp was still out. It was packed with struggling figures which fought and tore and trampled one another as they tried, all at once, to gain the safety of the stairs and elevators. As they watched, more than one, trying to claw and scramble over the tightly wedged bodies of his fellows, lost balance and fell over the side, tumbling and pirouetting through the air. The ship tilted into an incline, gave a great swerve and turn — it could have only been deliberate: Blaise Darnley ridding himself of his unwilling crew — and the whole mass of men went sliding, clutching, clutching, semaphoring with arms and legs, down, down….
Levvis swore in a faint voice. Duston dropped his farseer. Mars went sick. The ship drew in its ramp as a dog draws in its tongue.
Whether Blaise himself was at the control, or some member of Praetorian Guard, or (as it looked, as it seemed it might) if two or perhaps more than two were struggling for the controls, no one on the ground could say. But Persephone yawed, girated, held to an erratic course, came out of incline, went into it again.
All the while the pettyboat climbed. For a moment, it seemed to rest, to hover, to brood upon the wind. Then it flashed as it turned in the sun.
“Here I come,” said Lockharn, softly. So close was his voice, so wrapped in the awesome drama of the scene were his mates below, that it seemed for a second that he was there, there, in the midst of them, and not a distant voice brought near by the magic of the communicator.
The pettyboat came swooping down the air like a falcon upon its prey. The great ship broke loose from its veering and careening, started — and the boom, the blast, broke harsh and loud upon their ears — at increased speed and at a sharp oblique —
And the pettyboat rammed her between amidship and the engines. One fraction of a second, the black hole yawned, gaped. Then hole, boat, ship, all — all was lost in the flash of the explosion, the fiery convulsion, billowing, burning, burning —
— falling — falling —
Sound upon sound, noise echoing noise; and then the great column of smoke and fire blotting out the horizon and filling the sky — and the noise and the sound of that filled the world.
eleven
IT WAS LONG, LONG BEFORE ANY OF THEM MOVED from the spot where they had been standing. Mars was the first to speak. “Poor old Lockharn,” he said.
“Well,” said Storm, echoing a phrase as old as the Age of Space, the Technic Period itself, but now almost incredibly appropriate — “Well … he bought the farm….”
Rond stared at the pillar of cloud and fire. His face was white as snow, his mouth opened and closed like a fish’s mouth. There was a stone bench a few feet away. He moved like a man about to faint, almost fell, sat down heavily. He looked up, looked around, spread his hands in a gesture of absolute helplessness.
“All over,” he said. “All gone. No hope. No hope.”
Rahan-Joe put his hands on the man’s bowed shoulders. “The world is still here,” he said. “It will still need you, Rond-Father, you and your wisdom. Now you are a part of us.”
Rond’s head nodded, nodded — but whether in assent, or whether in confusion and bewilderment, they could not tell. “Poor old Locky,” Duston said. “He did it for us. I don’t know if any of us would have done it for him.”
The courtyard had been filling up with silent people. Now there was a movement in the crowd, which gave way to allow someone through. It was an old, old woman, all in black — the priestess of the People of the Forest, Nelsa’s outlaw band. The crone tottered up to them and bowed, her hands cupped together. “The prophecy,” she said, her voice full of awe and joy. “The prophecy …”
Heads nodded, faces mirrored her emotions. “How is that?” Jory asked.
It was O-Narra who answered him. “ ‘The great bird slays its dam, Heaven and Earth burn, the Great Men dwell in the Land and rule in equity.’ You see, Jory, the rest of it has been fulfilled. And now you will stay here, all of you.”
There seemed no doubt of that. They had no means of departure, and no means of
making of any. They were back in pre-Technic times. Their own scientific and technological knowledge and ability rested on the top of a pyramid, of which the base had been utterly destroyed. There was no point in looking for fissable materials now, or even petroleum. Borax was once again nothing more than the bitter salt of the desert, to be used for religious rituals and to soften water. The power-packs would last a while, and their knives would outlast them. All they had, in the long run, which could set them apart from the people of the Land, was their outlook upon the world, and their memories of what men might do … might, having once done, do again — if not now, then at a future date. That was all. But it was by no means inconsiderable.
Persephone would be marked down in the Guild registries as “Overdue.” After a while the Directorate would have her charted route checked for wreckage; then, finding none, finding no traces or reports of her or her crew anywhere within the extent of the Guild’s knowledge, she would be listed as “Believed Missing.” The Directorate was short on both sentiment and imagination. No expeditions would be sent out to places which were merely astronomical sightings. It was not a period of expansion, and there were no signs of a change in this. Chances that they would ever see another starship in the skies of planet Valentine were infinitely remote.
Here they were. And it was up to them to make the best of it.
• • •
For a while the land lay numb. The crash of the Persephone had killed not only her own crew but almost the entire army of the septs, including the obdurate Dame herself. Here and there the survivors of the invaded districts crept out of hiding and looked around them in wonder. Elsewhere, out of habit and out of awareness of necessity, the people tended their crops and herds. Occasionally some miraculously surviving member of the warrior class would be seen, no more certain of what to do than anyone else. The sept cities lay quiet; in the unharried fiefs the widowered Lords sat in their empty halls; husbands and pretty boys waited for the women who would never return. There was energy and initiative enough for the rites of mourning, after it was realized there would be no return, but not for much more. The land, for a while, lay numb.
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