The Fall of the Families

by Phillip Mann

  WHY, SURELY THAT IS OBVIOUS. TO BREAK HIS SPIRIT. HIS LOVE FOR THE LADY IS HIS GREATEST STRENGTH AND HIS GREATEST WEAKNESS, AS THE TREE TOLD US LONG AGO WHEN WE SET OUT ON THIS ADVENTURE. YOU WILL KILL HER. YOU WILL MAKE IT SEEM AS THOUGH ONE OF THE FAMILIES HAS HAD A HAND IN THE MURDER. PAWL PAXWAX WILL TURN ON THE FAMILIES AND WHEN HE REACHES FOR A SWORD, WE SHALL BE WAITING. WE SHALL DO THE REST. YOUR WORK WILL BE OVER.

  Over. Odin turned the word in his mind. Over. Such things are never over. But to the Diphilus he said, I UNDERSTAND.

  The matter was left there.

  Odin retired to the private chamber where the Gerbes lived on Sanctum. It was a place of sluggish waves, where the water always seemed oily. To kill was almost unknown in a Gerbes; Odin wondered how he would face it.

  But now the plan was out in the open. Odin knew the extent of the part he must play. He could not even feel bitterness. It was as though his life was no longer his own. He was just a piece, moved by others. And what was Pawl? And Laurel? And the Tree? They were victims like himself.

  Later that day Odin travelled to the Way Gate above Sanctum. He would allow no creature to accompany him. He felt contaminated. He did not want any other Gerbes to know what he was about. They thought he had an honourable part to play in the overthrow of the human worlds … let them think so. The truth would become known soon enough. YOUR DESTINATION? asked the Way Controller.

  THE PAXWAX HOME WORLD.

  And a whisper of thought, a shred of silver wrapped him about briefly, BON VOYAGE, COMRADE.

  5

  ON BENNET

  “Right then, it is decided. No more arguments. No one can say we Paxwax let the grass grow under our feet. Here is what we do.”

  They were in the vivantery, the very room where Pawl Paxwax and Peron had discovered the history of Odin’s race. Pawl was at the head of the table addressing a small meeting. Those facing him were flushed and excited, for there had been much friendly argument, each person wanting to satisfy their own interest. Vivante cubes were scattered and books were open. There was also evidence that a large quantity of Seppel juice had been drunk.

  At the back of the room, in the darkness near the door, stooped Odin. He had arrived that day and was now slowly immersing himself in Pawl’s Homeworld. Pawl was as friendly and receptive as Odin had hoped and the Gerbes took pleasure in his quick spirit. Peron, too, was glad to see him. Odin could tell that Peron’s hope was that one day he would speak in his mind. But for the time being he was content to watch. Paris paid him no heed, and Laurel … this was strange … Laurel was afraid of him. It was not a rational fear, it was instinctive. Her mind was closed and blank to him.

  “So here is what we do. Are we all listening? First Laurel and I make official calls. There are a lot of those. While we are flitting about, Paris goes to Phonir and hunts land whales. Peron, you will come with us, and I know you want to explore the Lamphusae Stones.”

  “Correct,” said Peron. “There is a theory….”

  “Shhhh,” said everyone.

  “Next we’ll all get together and have a few days on Lotus-and-Arcadia and then move back to the Paxwax domain and visit a world I’ve heard about called Forge. Always wanted to go there.” As he spoke Pawl was aware of Odin resting in his mind, just below consciousness. That day he and Odin had conversed and Odin had laid the idea of visiting the Hammer before Pawl. He had emphasized the excitement of meeting the exotic creatures. “Peron, I’ll expect you to have all the information about Forge. That’s the world where the Hammer used to live. Should be interesting. It’s a mining camp now. Then after Forge … bang, straight to Elliott’s Pocket, and we’ll stay there until we have to come home. There, that sounds pretty good to me. Anyone got any objections?” Pawl sat down heavily.

  Laurel raised her hand. “I’m not sure about Elliott’s Pocket. It sounds very dangerous.”

  “Sounds great,” said Paris.

  Pawl waved his hands. “The Pocket. Elliott’s Pocket. I’ve just worked it out. We’ll be there for the festival when they celebrate the deeds of John Death Elliott. Now that alone is a reason for going. But anyway, I have friends there. Dear friends. And remember … the Pocket saw some savage fighting during our recent disagreement with the Xerxes ladies and the Lamprey. But more than that, the Pocket is beautiful. It is the most beautiful place I have ever been. None of you have ever seen it. So let me tell you, all right? Pour me another Seppel, Peron, and get one yourself. All right?”

  “All right,” said everyone in unison, laughing, and Peron handed Pawl a full glass.

  “Now imagine,” said Pawl. “Close your eyes and imagine a great undulating, billowing mass of green gas. It stretches as far as the eye can see. It is like wraiths of mist over a lake, and the locals, those who live in the Pocket, call it Emerald Lake. Suns burn in the lake. At night it glows in the sky. That is the heart of the Pocket. Round Emerald Lake turn all manner of worlds. I have seen the very fabric of space there pressed and strained and tortured to a mottle of red and blue. I have seen as many as twenty black holes, each like a frozen whirlpool, or some black and bearded alien eye whirling round before disappearing into the darkness. I have seen great barging planets, dogged by moons swinging in from nowhere, following an orbit which is logical but irregular. In this place, comets chase their tails and asteroids growl, and space is alive with every conceivable vibration.”

  “Sounds magnificent,” said Peron. “The true mystery of space.”

  “It is. It is. The whole of the Pocket is a whirlpool. Whatever disappears into the dark always comes back eventually, but changed. The night sky is never the same for two nights together.

  “Have I told you about the Snake? No? Ah well. The Snake is one of the regular sights. It curls directly round Emerald Lake. The Snake is a coil of dust and asteroids. It has the shape of a snake, but with a head like a bellows.”

  Pawl glanced around. He was pleased to see that Laurel’s cheeks were flushed and her eyes seemed excited.

  “Why can’t we go there first?” she said.

  “Business, then pleasure. I want you to meet my friends. I want you to be able to relax with them. I want you to enjoy the Pocket, and you won’t enjoy it as much if you think that you have a round of boring receptions to follow. No. The Pocket is our reward after our duties. We will depart as soon as Wynn has worked out the timetable. So, I give you a toast, lady and gentlemen, to us. To excitement and the discovery of new worlds.”

  “New worlds,” everyone echoed.

  And that was the beginning.

  6

  ON FORGE

  And so for a time Laurel and Pawl, accompanied by Peron and Odin, shuttled back and forth through Pawl’s empire, making contacts, assessing damage and ordering help for those systems which had been ravaged in the recent war. They discovered, not surprisingly, that most systems wanted an assurance of peace and security.

  They met with the senior Proctor brothers on Central and the patriarch of the Wong Family on An. They attended receptions on the Homeworlds of the other Great Families and it seemed to both of them that life had become a round of Way Gates and banquets and handshaking and smiling and intense private conferences. Wherever they went they were attended by an honour guard and privacy became a much prized commodity. Occasionally they were able to slip away to some secluded solar system and there view the ruins of past civilizations. The alien wars during the Great Push had turned vast tracts of space into a battle field, and despite the centuries which had slipped past, the marks were still evident. It was on one such visit, while they were looking down on the remains of an alien city that had been fused to glass, that Laurel felt the first stirrings of a child within her. She kept this news to herself, treasuring the feeling, building on it her hopes for the future. Pawl did not guess, but he noticed a change in his wife, a lightness of step, a more ready laughter, and he felt glad inside.

  Finally the day came when they bade farewell to their emissaries and donned simple travelling clothes and
set out for the lonely Way Gate of Forge, where Paris was already waiting for them.

  Here are a few verses from the Song of Forge, which can still be heard occasionally in bars where miners gather to relive the days of their hardship and adventure.

  I’d rather burn in Hell boys,

  Or stand at Death’s own doors,

  Than be working for the Paxwax

  In the mines on Forge.

  I’d rather lose my eyes boys,

  And sell them for two plums,

  Than see a Hammer lift its sting

  And start to beat its drums.

  I’d rather be a thistle boys,

  I’d rather be a snake,

  Than a miner down on Forge boys,

  When Hammer makes a break.

  I’ve seen a Hammer run boys,

  Like shadow over sand,

  I’ve seen a Hammer jump boys

  But never seen one land.

  I’d rather be in bed boys,

  Just me and Sara Brown

  Mingling love and liquor

  While the sun goes down.

  Pawl Paxwax, now on his way to Forge, had never heard this song.

  The Paxwax agent on Forge, one Milligan by name, sat back in his squeaky cane chair and fanned himself with his grimy, wide-brimmed hat. He was a chunky square man, solid with muscle and with a face that looked as if it had been hammered together from old machine parts. He was the kind of man who enjoyed, though he would never admit it, the grim bitter battle that a planet like Forge afforded. He was the kind of brave, foolish man who would without thinking try to hold a breaking hawser with his bare hands. He was the kind of man who would die poor after a lifetime of labour, his muscles run to fat and his small pension scarcely enough to get drunk on.

  Milligan appraised Pawl with hooded, unsmiling eyes. He found it hard to keep his dislike and his distrust out of his voice. Pawl had just explained the reason for his visit to Forge “So you want to talk to the Hammer? I mean, you want to walk up to them and communicate face to face?”

  “Exactly.”

  Milligan stared at Pawl and his only movement was with his finger and thumb as he tried to smooth his spiky moustache. He saw a thin young man with soft hands … and who wielded power. A rich kid.

  “Well, not wanting to be rude to you sir, Master of Paxwax, but that’s the silliest idea I’ve heard since old Ces tried to clean his teeth with a particle gun.” He paused to see if Pawl was going to offer any comment. Pawl didn’t. “See, you don’t communicate with the Hammer. This is their planet and they know it. If you see one of the Hammer you just run away and hope it hasn’t seen you first. I’ve been scared off this planet three times, and I don’t scare that easy.” He cracked his big square hands for emphasis.

  “I believe you,” said Pawl. “And I didn’t plan on just walking in there. I have taken some precautions.”

  “A gun?” said Milligan, for the first time showing some real interest. “A big gun?”

  “Not a gun. The small creature with me is from the Inner Circle. He is a kind of ambassador.”

  Milligan sniffed. If he’d the choice between an ambassador and a gun, he knew which he would have chosen. “You are referring to that little fellow in the black clothes. I thought he was your pet or something.” Milligan muttered under his breath. He shifted in his cane chair. “I take it the lady will be going along too?”

  “No, she will be staying in the camp. The air and the dust don’t agree with her.”

  Milligan looked relieved. This at least accorded with his sense of right and wrong. “She’ll be safe with the boys in the camp and we can get her off-planet quickly if the Hammer start causing trouble.”

  “So,” continued Pawl, “all I want you to do, Agent Milligan, is to provide us with the basic equipment for survival on this wretched world and point us in the right direction.”

  “You mean you don’t even want me along to help you?”

  “No.”

  Milligan sat forward abruptly and the front two feet of his chair banged on the floor. He stood up. “Well. A fool and his life soon reach the crossroads.”

  He reached across his desk, picked up a small box and tipped its contents into the palm of his hand. Four short, conical nose plugs fell out. He blew through them in turn and then handed a pair to Pawl. “Here. They’ve been used once or twice but they’ll do to get you over to the mess hut so we can get you kitted out. Get you some proper goggles too. No one can’ve told you what Forge was like. You sure came unprepared.”

  Without waiting for any comment from Pawl, Milligan crossed to the main door and spun the wheel which unfastened the air-tight door. It cracked open slowly and a cloud of fine red dust filtered into the room. The door opened fully on its screw arms to reveal a dismal landscape of wind-smoothed rocks, billowing clouds of red dust and low utility huts. In the distance, hardly visible, were steep hills and above them a purple sky.

  “Walk sideways and put your face in your shoulder,” said Milligan. Pawl inserted the rough plugs into his nose. “Breathe through your nose or you’ll choke. It’s not far.”

  *

  The mining camp occupied little more than a square mile of flattish ground. It was surrounded by a fence of charged particle screens which glowed eerily as they randomized the drifting grains of dust and sand. In the centre of the compound stood a gantry supporting a giant wheel which turned steadily, lifting ore from deep within the planet. Gathered round the gantry were the small prefabricated huts which constituted the only town on Forge. Here lived the crew that worked in the small mine. They were an outpost, for Forge was located at the limit of Pawl’s empire. The closest neighbour came from the smaller families and beyond them was the Felice.

  Though Pawl did not know it, the red star about which the hidden world of Sanctum turned was visible from Forge.

  Halfway across the compound, Pawl opened his mouth to speak but the hot air dried his tongue and he closed his mouth quickly. Milligan trudged on, holding his breath, oblivious.

  Inside the mess-hut a modest meal had been prepared by the camp cook, who was also the quartermaster and doctor. Paris and Laurel were already seated. Peron was studying maps of the region. Away in one corner Odin squatted quietly, the cowl of his habit well forward, so that no glimmer of his pale mask was visible.

  The cook, a bald-headed man with soft white hands, looked up from his dishes when Pawl and Milligan entered.

  “Glad to see you, captain,” said the cook. His name was Sild. “I was beginning to wonder. I am just about to serve.”

  Milligan grunted. “Huh. Well, while they are eating I want you to break out sets of masks, goggles and dust coats for the three gentlemen and – ” He gestured across towards Odin.

  “The representative from the Inner Circle is already protected,” said Pawl.

  “Going to look round the mine, eh?” said Sild, placing a heavy casserole in the middle of the table.

  “Nope,” said Milligan. “They plan on giving the Hammer a visit.”

  Sild stared at them and then removed his white apron. As he did so his manner changed. “As medical orderly …” he began and then caught Milligan’s eye.

  “I’ve already warned them off,” said Milligan. “So you might as well save your breath.”

  Sild retied his apron, but he looked very upset as he dished out the meal in silence.

  Now that they were actually down on the surface of Forge, the prospect of meeting the Hammer had become suddenly daunting. What had seemed an exciting plan on Pawl’s Homeworld looked distinctly frightening in the clotted light of Forge.

  Odin’s voice uncoiled in Pawl’s mind. “We shall be safe. I have the assurance of the Inner Circle. But we must do nothing that might upset the Hammer. So be of good cheer. You are about to see things which no man has ever seen before.”

  And this was true. Since the battles of the Great Push and the defeat of the Hammer by the Wong there had been almost no contact between the two species. Peron h
ad discovered what he could concerning the Hammer. He had shared his knowledge with the others during the brief time they spent aboard the dirty Way Gate above Forge. They knew what the Hammer looked like, they knew that the Hammer had a language which consisted of drumming, they knew that the Hammer had once travelled between the stars; but how they had travelled, and how expansive their empire had once been, and what ideas shaped their culture, they did not know.

  While waiting for the slow shuttle they had seen the ring of killer satellites that girdled the planet and stared down at its surface. These satellites would destroy Forge if ever the Hammer attempted to escape.

  For all practical purposes the Hammer were a forgotten race.

  Sild helped them dress and explained the survival apparatus. Other miners arrived, tired from the morning shift and with red dust round their eyes like goggles. The afternoon shift assembled, cleaned and refreshed and full of boisterous humour. They chipped in with advice about how to walk so that the gowns shed their dust and how to breathe smoothly through the filters. The dust coats were made of a light black plastic which hung down to their ankles like a smock. The air filters and goggles were incorporated into the same headpiece. It fitted snugly over the shoulders and could be adjusted with snag-straps. The headpiece made their voices sound distant and hollow.

  “Now remember,” shouted Milligan when they were all kitted out, “if a sandstorm blows up, just squat down. There’s enough food supplies and oxygen stored in the lining of this smock to keep you going until we can dig you out. There’s an automatic alarm also, so you don’t have to worry about that.”

  “Good hunting,” called Laurel. “Make sure you take some good vivantes. We want to know everything that happens.” They nodded and waved and made their muffled farewells.