The Game Of Empire

by Poul Anderson

  "Shall we yield? They might be content to shoot me, and the imprisonment of you two might not be cruel.

  "You signal a no."

  "My mother passed on an ancient sayin' to me," Diana told them. "Better to die on your feet than live on your knees."

  "Ah, the young do not truly understand they can die," Axor sighed. "Yet if any possibility whatsoever is left us, what can we in conscience do other than try it?"

  Still the Tigery prowled. "I am thinking, I am thinking—" Abruptly he halted. He drove the knife into a bole so that the metal sang. "Javak! Yes, it was on my horizon—a twisted path—But we must needs hurry, and not give the foe time to imagine we are crazy enough to take that way."

  The south side of the Mencius range dropped a short distance before the land resumed its climb. This was unpeopled country, heavily wooded save where the canyon of the Averroes River slashed toward the sea, and on the higher flanks of the mountains. Kukulkan had told Diana it was a game and recreational preserve. The location of the spaceport here dated from troubled early days, when it might have become a target, minor though it was. Perhaps its isolation had been a factor in the conceiving of the Merseian plot.

  Despite everything, the girl caught her breath at the sight. Clear, apart from a slight golden fleece of clouds, the sky was pale below, deepening in indigo at the zenith; but still night cast a dusk over the reaches around her. Heights to north and south walled in the world. Only at the ends of the vale did the sun-ring shine, casting rays that made the bottom a lake of amber. Where trees allowed glimpses, the hills above were purple-black, the snow-caps in the distance moltenly aglow. Air was cool on her brow. Quietness towered.

  Wonder ended as Targovi pointed ahead.

  Beyond the last concealment the forest afforded was a hundred-meter stretch, kept open though overgrown with brush and weeds. A link fence, to hold off animals, enclosed a ferrocrete field. Her pulse athrob but her senses and judgment preternaturally sharp, she gauged its dimensions as five hundred by three hundred meters. Service buildings clustered and a radionic mast spired at the farther end. Of the several landing docks, two were occupied. One craft she identified as interplanetary, a new and shapely version of Moonjumper. The other was naval—rather small as interstellar ships went, darkly gleaming, gun turret and launcher tubes sleeked into her leanness—akin to the Comet class, but not identical, not designed or wrought by humans—What ghost in her head blew a bugle call?

  Huge and vague in the shadows, Axor whispered hoarsely, "We take the Zacharian vessel, of course."

  "No, of course not," Targovi hissed. His eyes caught what light there was and burned like coals. "I was right in guessing the islanders are as militarily slovenly here as at the centrum, and have armed no watch. The thought of us hijacking a spaceship is too warlike to have occurred to them. But the Merseians are bound to have a guard aboard theirs. I know not whether that's a singleton or more, but belike whoever it is knows how to dispatch a seeker missile, or actually lift in chase." Decision. "However, we may well dupe them into supposing we are after the easier prey, and thus catch them off balance. The dim light will help—"

  When he burst from concealment, Axor carried Diana in the crook of an arm, she would otherwise have toiled far behind him and Targovi. The pounding of his gallop resounded through her. She leaned into his flexing hardness, cradled her rifle, peered after a mark.

  It was an instant and it was a century across the clearing, until they reached the fence. Axor's free arm curved around to keep torn strands off her while he crashed through. Nevertheless, several drew blood. She barely noticed.

  Men ran from the terminal, insectoidal at their distance, then suddenly near. She saw pistols in the hands of some. She heard a buzz, a thud. Axor grunted, lurched, went on. Diana opened fire. A figure tumbled and lay sprattling.

  Targovi bounded alongside. The cargo carrier was straight ahead. He raised his arm, veered, and went for the Merseians. Diana's vision swooped as Axor came around too. She glanced past his clifflike shoulder and saw the Zacharians in bewilderment. They numbered perhaps a dozen.

  Targovi mounted the entry ramp of the dock. An airlock stood shut against him. He shielded his eyes with an arm and began to cut his way in with the blaster. Flame spurted blue-white, heat roiled, air seethed, sparks scorched his fur. A light ship like this relied on her forcefields and interceptors for protection in space. Nobody expected attack on the ground.

  The Zacharians rallied and pelted toward him. They had courage aplenty, Diana thought in a breath. Axor went roaring and trampling to meet them. She threw a barrage. The men scattered and fled, except for one wounded and two shapeless.

  Diana's trigger clicked on an empty magazine. Above her, Targovi's blaster sputtered out, its capacitors exhausted.

  Axor thundered up the ramp. "Diana, get down!" he bawled. "Both of you, behind me!"

  They scrambled to obey. He hammered his mass against the weakened lock. At the third impact it sagged aside.

  Four Merseians waited. Their uniforms revealed them to be soldiers, unqualified to fly the craft they defended. Rather than shut the inner valve and risk it being wrecked too, they had prepared to give battle. Merseians would.

  Axor charged. Beams and bullets converged on him. That could not check such momentum. Two died under his hoofs before he collapsed, shaking the hull. Targovi and Diana came right after. The Tigery threw his knife. A handgun rattled off a bulkhead. He and the Merseian went down together, embraced. His fangs found the green throat. Diana eluded a shot, got in close, and wielded her own blade.

  Targovi picked himself up. "They'll've sent for help," he rasped out of dripping jaws. "Lubberly warriors though Zacharians be, I give us less than ten minutes. While I discover how to raise this thing, you close the portal." He whisked from sight.

  The lock gave her no difficulty; the layout resembled that of Moonjumper. With the ship sealed, she made her way across a slippery deck to Axor. He lay breathing hard. Scorch marks were black over his scales. Redness oozed from wounds, not quite the same hue as hers, which was not quite the same as the Merseians', but it was all blood—water, iron, life—"Oh, you're so hurt," she keened. "What can I do for you?"

  He lifted his head. "Are you well, child?"

  "Yes, nothin' hit me, but you, darlin', you—"

  Lips drew back in a smile that others might have found frightening. "Not to fear. A little discomfort, yes, I might go so far as to say pain, but no serious injury. This carcass has many a pilgrimage ahead of it yet. Praises be to God and thanks to the more militant saints." The head sank. Wearily, soberly, he finished, "Now let me pray for the souls of the fallen."

  A shiver went through Diana's feet. Targovi had awakened the engines.

  Atmospheric warcraft zoomed over hills and mountains. He did not try keying in an order to shoot. Instead, he outclimbed them. Missiles whistled aloft. By then he had learned how to switch on the deflector field.

  And after that he was in space. The planet rolled beneath him, enormous and lovely, burnished with oceans, emblazoned with continents, white-swirled with clouds. Once more he saw stars.

  He could only take a moment to savor. Single-handing, he hadn't a meteorite's chance against attack by any Naval unit. "Diana," he said over the intercom, "come to the bridge, will you?" and devoted himself to piloting. He couldn't instruct the autosystem the unfamiliar manual controls responded clumsily to him, and the navigational instruments were incomprehensible; he must eyeball and stagger his way. At least he'd managed to set a steady interior field of about a gee. Otherwise his comrades would be getting thrown around like chips in a casino.

  Well, if he and they could walk from the landing, that was amply good—if they walked free.

  The girl entered and took the copilot's seat. "I hope to bring us down at Aurea port," he told her. "No doubt the Zacharians will call frantically in, demanding the Navy blow us menaces out of the sky, and no doubt there are officers who will be happy to oblige. I lack skill t
o take us away on hyperdrive. You are the human aboard. What do you counsel?"

  She considered, hand to smoke-smudged cheek—tangle-haired, sweaty, ragged, begrimed. Glancing at her, scenting her, knowing her, he wished he could be, for some hours, a male of her species.

  "Can you set up a strong audiovisual transmission, that'll punch through interference on the standard band?" she asked.

  He studied the console before him. "I think I can."

  "Do." She closed her eyes and sagged in her harness.

  But when he was ready, she came back to strength. To the computer-generated face in the screen she said: "I have a message for Commandant General Cesare Gatto. It's not crank, and it is top priority. If it don't get straight to him, courts martial are goin' to blossom till you can't see the clover for 'em. The fact I'm in a spacecraft you'll soon identify as Merseian should get you off your duffs. He'll want a recognition code, of course. Tell him Diana Crowfeather is bound home."

  Chapter 21

  The database contained much that became priceless to the Navy in its operations against the revolt. Some continued valuable afterward, to Terran Intelligence, until the Merseians had completed necessary changes of plan and organization—an effort which, while it went on, kept them out of considerable mischief abroad. A part of the record dealt with Sir Olaf Magnusson. From previous experience and knowledge, Flandry reconstructed more of the story, conjecturally but with high probability.

  A man stern and righteous lived under an Imperium effete and corrupt. Emperor Georgios meant well, but he was long a-dying, and meanwhile the favorites of the Crown Prince crowded into power. After Josip succeeded to the throne, malfeasance would scarcely trouble to mask itself, and official after official would routinely order atrocities committed on outlying worlds entrusted to them, that wealth might be wrung into their coffers. Erik Magnusson, space captain and trader of Kraken, forswore in his heart all allegiance to the Empire that had broken faith with him.

  Somehow a Merseian or two, among those whom he occasionally met, sensed the unhappiness in him and passed word of it on to those who took interest in such matters. Upon his next visit to their mother planet, he received baronial treatment. In due course he met the great lord—not the Roidhun, who has more often been demigod than ruler, but the chief of the Grand Council, the day-by-day master of that whole vast realm, insofar as any single creature could ever be.

  This was Brechdan Ironrede, the Hand of the Vach Ynvory, an impressive being whose soul was in many respects brother to the soul of Captain Magnusson. Well did he know what would appeal. There were humans by race who were Merseian subjects, just as there were Merseians by race who were Terran subjects—tiny minorities in either case, but significant on many levels. Those whom Brechdan summoned must have joined their voices to his. Why should Kraken pay tribute to an Imperium which enriched toadies, fettered commerce, and neglected defenses? The law of the Roidhun was strict but just. Under him, men could again be men. United, the two civilizations would linger no more in this handful of stars on a fringe of the galaxy; they would fare forth to possess the cosmos.

  Erik Magnusson was converted. Perhaps Aycharaych, the telepath, confirmed it.

  The man must have realized how slight the chance was that he could ever be of important service. He might or might not recruit a few others, he might or might not sometimes carry a message or an agent, but basically he was a reservist, a silent keeper of the flame. At home he could not even declare openly his love for Merseia.

  But the time came when he gave Merseia his son.

  The boy Olaf accompanied him there and remained. Nobody on Kraken suspected aught amiss when Erik returned within him. Olaf's mother was dead, his father had not remarried, his siblings had learned to refrain from pestering with questions. "I got him an apprentice's berth on a prospector ship. He'll learn more and better than in any of our schools."

  The secret school he did enter was neither human or humane. High among its undertakings was to strengthen the strong and destroy the weak. Olaf survived. He learned science, history, combat, leadership, and tearlessness. Toward the end, Aycharaych took him in charge, Aycharaych the Chereionite, he of the crested eagle countenance and the subtle, probing intellect. Merseian masters had laid a foundation in the boy: knowledge, physique, purpose. Upon it Aycharaych now raised the psychosexual structure he wanted.

  The Golden Face, the uttered wisdom, the Sleep and the Dreams and the words that whispered through them … carefully orchestrated pleasures of flesh, mind, spirit … dedication to a God unknowable—

  Young Olaf Magnusson reappeared on Kraken after some years, taciturn about his adventures. He soon enlisted in the Imperial marines. From then on, he carried out his orders.

  They were the directives of his superiors. Never was he a spy, a subversive, or anything but a bold, bright member of the Terran armed services—enlisted man, cadet on transfer, Navy officer. The commandment of the Merseians was to do his utmost, rise as fast and high as possible, and inwardly stand by for an opportunity that might well never come.

  What action he saw at first was against barbarians, bandits, local rebels and recalcitrants, nothing to stir inner conflict. But when crisis erupted into combat at Syrax, he fought Merseians. What agony this cost him—and perhaps that was little, for he had been taught that death in battle is honorable, and an individual is only a cell in the bloodstream of the Race—was eased when a secret agent brought him praise and told him that henceforward he would be in the minds of the Roidhunate's mighty.

  He had also called himself to the attention of the Empire's. His career plunged ahead like a comet toward its sun. If Merseia or its cat's paws made trouble, that was frequently in regions where he was stationed, and he distinguished himself. Knowing Eriau and two other major Merseian languages, he served on negotiating commissions, and gained still greater distinction. Beginning as an aide, he proffered such excellent suggestions that presently he was in charge; and under his direction, the Terrans got terms more advantageous to themselves than they had really hoped for.

  True, these were all ad hoc arrangements, concerning specific, spatially limited issues of secondary concern. Nonetheless Olaf Magnusson proved that he understood the Merseians and could get along with them. Manifestly, they did not hold his combat career against him; rather, they respected his ability and determination.

  The Navy did likewise. Aloofness and austerity became advantageous traits in the reformist reign of Emperor Hans; they showed Magnusson to be no mere uniformed politician. He was a spit-and-polish disciplinarian, but always fair, and, given a deserving case, capable of compassion. Where he held office, morale rose high, also among civilians, especially after his broadcast speeches. Thus it became logical to make him responsible for the defense of an entire, strategically critical sector, bordering on the debatable spaces between Empire and Roidhunate.

  Terra later had cause to give the High Command thanks for so wise a choice. What seemed like another quarrel between the powers, ugly but resolvable, abruptly escaped control. It flared into the worst emergency since Syrax. There was no rhyme or reason to that; but how often is there with governments? Once again a Merseian task force moved toward an undermanned Terran frontier "to restore order, assure the safety of the Race and its client species, and make possible the resumption of meaningful diplomatic discussions."

  The meaning of those discussions would be obvious, when Merseia held a sizeable chunk ripped out of the Empire's most vulnerable side. The concessions demanded would not be such to provoke hall-scale war; but they would leave Terra sorely weakened. Time was lacking in which to send adequate reinforcements. Against the threat, Olaf Magnusson's fleet orbited alone.

  "We will pay the price," the Merseian envoy had said in the hidden place. "You must it exact it ruthlessly. Spare us no blow that you can deal. Your duty is to become a hero."

  The Imperials at Patricius met the foe and broke him. His shattered squadrons reeled back into the darkness whence they c
ame. Merseian representatives called for an immediate reconvening of the high-level conference, and suddenly what they asked and offered was reasonable. Jubilation billowed through the Empire, yes, even on jaded Terra. Magnusson went there to receive a knighthood at the hands of the Emperor.

  He returned to folk who adored him and felt cheated by their Imperium—almost as embittered as were many Merseians who had seen comrades die and ships lost because of unprecedented ineptitude. Sir Olaf began to speak out against the decadence of the state, of the entire body politic. He spoke both publicly and privately. Given his immense prestige and his remoteness from the center of things, no one ventured to quell him … until he proclaimed himself master of all, and his legions hailed him; and then it was too late.

  "This is the day for which we have prepared throughout your lifetime," said the envoy in the hidden place.

  "I am to reach the throne?" Magnusson asked, amazed in spite of having guessed what his engineered destiny was. "Why? To undermine the Empire till it lies ready for conquest? I—do not like that thought. Nor do I really believe it's a possibility. Too many unforeseeables, too many whole worlds."

  "Khraich, no. Victory shall be as quick and clean as we can make it. You are to come not as the executioner, but the savior."