The Fall of the Families

by Phillip Mann

  Laverna passed her hand over the vivante plate on her Home-world and in that instant she vanished from the Homeworlds of Cicero and Singular. The two men found themselves staring at one another.

  “Do you think she has really found something out?” asked Cicero.

  Singular Sith gripped his horns and flexed his muscles. “Well, the Felice have good intelligence. She has probably smelled something.”

  “I don’t want her stirring up the Families against the aliens again. Why can’t the damned woman let things rest? It isn’t as though the aliens pose a real threat. I keep mine gelded … we smash any eggs we find.”

  “Laverna’s problem,” said Singular Sith slowly, and with his nostrils flaring at the coming joke, “is that the Felice are continuing to get smaller with every generation. They need a good bollocking.”

  “I’m told,” said Cicero, leaning forward conspiratorially, “that they can’t have sex any more except with one another. It’s a matter of size, you see.” He giggled. “That’ll hasten their downfall.”

  Singular Sith nodded. “The day will come, my friend Cicero, and not too far away either, when we will hunt the Felice with cats. You mark my words. Little people.” He spat the words out. “They always want to rule the worlds. But we must be on our guard. The Felice woman is dangerous. I think I shall have a word with the Inner Circle. They helped calm things down after the Paxwax War. They don’t want to see more trouble.”

  “Good thinking. And so shall I. I mean, what are the Inner Circle for if not solving disagreements?”

  “True.”

  The two men broke contact.

  Singular Sith returned to his bed.

  Not so Cicero Paragon. He sent word out through his empire to all the worlds where aliens were used and advised them to be on their guard in case of trouble.

  Even while he was doing this, Laverna Felice had made her first move. Aliens on the far-flung worlds of her empire were being rounded up.

  9

  IN ELLIOTT’S POCKET

  It seemed to Pawl that he had only just got to sleep when there came a pounding at the door of his burrow. Pettet was there. He was still wearing the clothes he had worn for the party.

  “Pawl, you need to see this. Things are changing up top. Emerald Lake is changing. Come on quickly.”

  Pawl rolled out of bed heavily and tucked the covers round Laurel, who muttered and murmured and drew her knees up to her chest.

  “Coming. Coming.”

  “Come on, hurry up.”

  “Just let me get my pants on.”

  Pawl ran behind the giant Pettet, who pounded down the path by the lake and came to a square door cut into the bedrock of the planet.

  “Hold on to your breakfast,” said Pettet, squeezing his frame into the small cubicle. Pawl had to crouch at his feet. “This is a vacuum chute. It’ll have us to the surface in sec – "

  The acceleration slammed Pawl to the floor.

  And within seconds they stepped out into an observation pod on the surface of Lumb. Outside, the branches of the shrub which covered Lumb pressed against the windows. Haberjin was there, as well as several men and women whom Pawl had met at the party. They were gathered round a large screen which showed Emerald Lake as seen from a telescope on the way platform high above the planet.

  The people made room for Pawl. On the screen the vast area of gas called Emerald Lake glowed dully. It had lost the brilliance which Pawl had seen there just a few hours previously. Now, hanging above it, serene and still, was a small solar system. This consisted of an intensely bright sun and a giant planet of mottled purple and a small world of shining green.

  “What is it?” asked Pawl. “I thought it would have taken days, weeks, months even for anything to lift clear of Emerald Lake.”

  Pettet shrugged. “Who knows? You are right. But the Pocket…. ”

  “Have you been able to make any kind of analysis?”

  Haberjin, who was one of those pressed close to the screen, turned to him. “Analysis, Master Pawl? Some. But it doesn’t make much sense. We will know more soon. Right now, every telescope and sensor in the whole of the Pocket is trained on the newcomers. Even the psychics are joining in.”

  “Well, tell me.”

  “Preliminary data indicates that the sun is brighter than it should be by several magnitudes given its size. It is not big, but it is powerful.”

  “And?”

  “And that purple blot, if it is a planet, is five times larger than its sun. The small green one is very small. But it is denser than all of them.”

  “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Not by the laws of normal physics, no.”

  “Are we in danger?”

  “No more than normal,” rumbled Pettet. “In fact less so, if our instruments are to be believed. Now that they are clear of Emerald Lake everyone feels better. Everything is working better. Even vivantes can be made. There is no need for panic.”

  “Are they still moving?”

  “We can’t tell,” said Haberjin. “But my guess is that they are not. Now that they are clear of Emerald Lake they seem to have settled. They are waiting.”

  “Waiting? Waiting for what?”

  Haberjin shrugged. “Time will tell. But the sooner we get out there and take a look the better, eh maestro?” He was addressing Pettet.

  There seemed to be nothing more that could be done for the moment so Pawl broke free from the crowd and moved over to the windows and looked out. The great amorphous bulk of Emerald Lake filled most of the sky. The Snake had set many hours earlier. Even to the naked eye the new sun was brightly visible, though nothing of its two attendant worlds could be seen. Pettet joined Pawl and stood towering beside him.

  “Raleigh tells me you have good news. We congratulate you.”

  “The best news. You will be coming to our Homeworld for the birth?”

  “It will be our pleasure. It will be the first time that either of us have been out of the Pocket.”

  Pawl smiled and nodded up to the bright new star. “Is it a friendly omen?”

  “Let us hope so.”

  “Where is Raleigh? Why is she not with you?”

  “Ah. She is meditating. She is sending her mind out to discover what is up there.”

  “And when will she make her feelings known?”

  The giant shrugged. “In her own time. Such things can not be rushed.” Pettet lapsed into silence. He stood gazing upwards, as though he would like to reach out into space and drag the strange star down with his hands. Pawl was aware that once again the giant was not saying all that was on his mind, that he was again struggling with words.

  “Speak your mind, Pettet. Are you frightened?”

  “The unknown is always frightening. But I have a feeling … I think I have seen these three before.”

  “Really? Where?”

  “I cannot be certain. Old star charts. When we have rested I will make a thorough check. Meanwhile we are on guard. I suggest you sleep now. I just thought you would want to see what is happening.”

  “Of course I wanted to see. I’m glad you woke me up.”

  The giant yawned, opening his jaws wide and then snapping them shut. “It has been a good first night to the festival, hasn’t it?”

  “Very good.”

  “Tomorrow we will talk further. I will ask Haberjin to join us.”

  “Let us hope that Raleigh meditates well.”

  “Let us hope.”

  Pawl slept late. When he awoke he was not certain whether the sudden appearance of the small solar system was real or whether he had dreamed it.

  Any doubt was soon dispelled. While he and Laurel were enjoying breakfast by the lake, one of Pettet’s sons approached them.

  “When you have time, Master Pawl, my father requests you join him in his workshop close to the landing bay.”

  Both Pawl and Laurel smiled at the formality of the language. It seemed to be a family trait.

  “Tell him I wi
ll come directly. Do you know why he wishes to see me?”

  “Something to do with old charts, I think.”

  “Am I invited too?” asked Laurel.

  The boy started to blush.

  “Oh, I am sure you are. I didn’t mean to suggest that … it is just … can your assistant Peron come too?”

  “Tell your father that we shall all be there.”

  “Thank you.” The boy dived into the lake and did not break the surface until he was halfway to the other side.

  It was obvious that Pettet had not slept. Fatigue lines were showing round his eyes and his hair was unbrushed and tumbled down over his shoulders. But still there was something triumphant about him. “Sit down, sit down,” he said. “I have a lot to tell you.” Haberjin entered the work-room., dragging two extra chairs with him. He too had the bright-eyed look of a man who has gone without sleep. His jaw was dark with stubble. He placed a chair behind Peron who, ghastly-faced, sank into it. Peron could not believe how hungover he felt.

  “This,” said Pettet, “is what I wanted to show you.” He carefully lifted a frame which measured about a yard square and set it down on a white cloth on the table in front of them. Inside the frame, pressed tight between sheets of clear laminate, was a star chart. It had been hand drawn. Pawl leant forward but could make no sense of the lines and figures and strange hieroglyphs. Pettet held up his hand to forestall any questions.

  “Now,” he said, “one of my hobbies has been collecting old charts like this. I consider myself lucky to have been born in the Pocket, for the Pocket is a museum. Out there – “ he gestured with one of his huge hands in the space above him – “are countless wrecks. God knows what draws them to the Pocket. Perhaps we are like the Sargasso Sea of old Mother Earth which once trapped sailing ships. Whatever, But out there are alien ships which predate the time of the Great Push. There are ships from Earth that were simply captured by alien fleets and directed to their doom in the Pocket like cattle driven over a cliff. This knot of space is, we believe, as old as the galaxy itself, and being ancient it obeys its own laws.

  “Anyway, some time ago, Haberjin and I were exploring and we came upon a gravity net in which was trapped an ancient ship.”

  “What is a gravity net?” asked Laurel.

  “An old alien trick. Two spinning asteroids which trap a ship at their focus. You see, the ship is immobilized, and then they lace the space about it with bombs and when it calls for help any ship which approaches is destroyed. You must have heard of such.”

  Laurel hadn’t but Pawl nodded.

  “Well, we approached cautiously. But there were no bombs. There was no sign of energy. And when we got close enough we understood why. The ship was ancient. Haberjin identified it as one of the early Forager Class ships that were sent out in the first wave of expansion from Earth. Any power unit would have died thousands of years earlier. Any bombs had either detonated themselves or escaped or simply spoiled.

  “We closed slowly and sprang the trap by altering the spin of one of the asteroids. We’ve done it before, but you have to be careful. One of the asteroids exploded. The trapped ship was spat free and we hared after it. We caught it and brought it back here.

  “Now, when we opened it up we found that everything had been stripped. There were no bodies. Nothing. It was a mystery.”

  “Whoever had ransacked the ship had been looking for platinum,” interrupted Haberjin. “They’d cut the core out of the engine and they must have been frustrated because they’d smashed everything else.”

  “But they hadn’t found everything. I found the remains of the old guidance computer and under it I found some vacuum tubes, and when I opened them I found these charts.

  “Well, we reckon these are the private maps of the working navigator, whoever he was, God rest his soul. You know, in those days the crew spent months, or even years sometimes, with almost nothing to do and so they used to spend their time making artefacts. We could show you … no matter. These maps, and we have all of them, tell the story of the ship’s journey from the time it left the Homeworld of Homeworlds up to the time it was captured.

  “Look closely at this particular map. Let me take you through it. It is a map of the Pocket as it was when the ship first arrived. We know the name of the ship.” He pointed with a blunt finger to some writing at the top of the chart. “Can you read that?” The question was directed to Peron. That scholar traced the letters and spelled out the name. Ka N Di.

  “Right, Candle. Something nice to eat. Eh? Strange name for a spaceship, but the ancients were strange. I’ve managed to translate most of the map. Now what do you think this is?” Pettet pointed to a shape of stars that was coiled.

  “Isn’t that the Snake?” said Laurel.

  “Yes. They called it Serpent, see. That word has almost the same meaning. First time I read that it made me feel as though I’d stepped back in time. They were the same as us, those old navigators. They saw things the same way, had the same fears.”

  “What do these words mean?” asked Peron, pointing to a short paragraph close to the Snake and which was joined by a short arrow to the Eye of the Snake. Pettet leaned over the map and studied the fine print.

  “I can’t translate all the words, but here goes.”

  Another strangeness. This star emits … capable of transforming even living tissue to (?marble?). Suspect alien design, though it is difficult to study being so lethal. Warned by fate of “manta” to stand off. Inv. sq law holds. We are safe at 20.

  “Manta,” said Peron, screwing up his face. “It must be a name for that creature you told us about. Look, there’s a drawing of it.” Delicately lined and carefully shaded was a drawing of a creature with a vast solar sail.

  Pettet nodded. “When I saw that I started looking for anything else I could recognize. I found these.” He pointed to a tight binary system. “We call these Tooth and Claw. The people aboard the Candie called them Scylla and … I can’t make out the last word, but look, they’ve marked them with a big black cross so some catastrophe occurred there.’’

  “Is this Emerald Lake?” asked Laurel, pointing to a large shaded area in the centre of the map.

  “Yes. They just call it Green Gas. Look, they’ve added a note.”

  Romany II entered this cloud on … since which time no message has been received. Given trajectory we expect reemergence on….

  “And see, someone else has added a note later. It’s not in the same handwriting.”

  Romany II sighted as expected. No radio contact. All dead. Ship riddled.

  “We think Romany II must have been a sister ship of the Forager class.”

  Pawl shifted in his seat. “Look, this is all very interesting, Pettet, and in other circumstances I would like nothing more than for you to explain all the map to me. But what is the significance at present? We have a new star out there. We have strange things going round it. Does….”

  Pettet held his hand up. “The map tells us a great deal.” He pushed the frame over close to Pawl and pointed to a thin red line which led away from the sea of green gas to an illustration. Depicted in colour were a large mottled purple world, a bright sun, and a green world. Whoever had drawn this map had evidently considered this strange configuration to be very important, for they had placed a red ring round it. Printed beside each of the objects was the name the early navigators had given it. The mottled world was Erix, the small sun was Candle, and the bright green world was called Ultima Thule. “You see. They have been here before. The people who drew this map saw them, and what’s more, thought them important. Look, they’ve put black crosses by them.”

  “And the writing by them, what does it mean?” asked Pawl.

  “Be prepared for disappointment,” said Pettet. “I can’t make sense of most of it. And the rest is too faded.”

  “Well, tell us what you can.”

  Pettet hunched over the map again, and followed the words with his finger, translating as he went.

  �
� stayed more days than we wanted … deep feeling in all of us … escaped by courage. On U. Thule dead Ralph was on our minds and we saw him running by silver … (?fern?) … three more are lost running … abandoned them.

  We will not return to the land where the dead live. Warning beacon set at … Saw many ruined ships. Evidence of the alien … trees like giant mushrooms which burned with silver fire … Home now, and none too soon.

  “You see. Most of it doesn’t make sense. Is Ultima Thule the land where the dead live? And who was Ralph? Was he a crewman? And was he dead? And who were the three who were lost running? And what was the silver fire? There are more questions than answers.”

  Pettet sat down.

  “Even so,” said Pawl. “Obviously the ancients felt that these worlds were important. Just the kind of enigma upon which you people who live in the Pocket thrive. I don’t think we’ll learn much more until you go out there and investigate.”

  “Hear, hear,” said Haberjin softly.

  And at that moment the door opened and Raleigh joined them. She seemed to have aged ten years. She took her seat beside Pettet and slipped her arms round his arm and rested her head against him.

  “I could make no contact,” she said. “But there is life there. It held me away. I could no more reach it than I could batter my way through these walls with my fists. It is deadly but not cruel. It is other, and we should have no part in it.”

  10

  AMONG THE FAMILIES

  The most widespread race of aliens used by the human Masters of the Families were the Spiderets.

  These creatures had quick brains and were superb engineers. On countless worlds they kept machinery ticking, and their ability to tolerate high gravity and thin air made them ideal pioneers. They were, however, recognized as dangerous. Gelded of their fangs they became dull and lethargic, and so most of the working Spiderets were left intact and treated with respect.