by Hal Annas
But he said, “You might be safe in the Eg System for a while. It’s certain that we’ll strike the outer planets and cut the space ways at the beginning. I’ve been in space with my father four years. I know his strategy. He’ll send a small force toward SYZ, to draw out the fleet, and then scorch a continent or two of the home, planet, Earth. He’ll seize a foothold there and commit what are called depredations while he draws off most of his forces. And as the fleet comes rushing back to the rescue he’ll strike the SYZ System in full force. He may completely denude those planets. Success there will enable him to ring Earth and harass it, smothering its commerce, until the populace is exhausted.”
Aline had never heard Moxol talk that way before. He didn’t sound like a Novakkan. They were not noted for elaborate plans. She gathered that he was talking of plans as he would execute them in Rahn Buskner’s place.
And then it dawned that here was a Novakkan, half-Earthman, that had both the courage and the will to carry out such plans. He was not an ordinary raider. Sixteen years old. Little more than six feet tall. By Earth gravity, less than two hundred pounds in weight.
He didn’t bluster, didn’t boast. He didn’t move heedlessly. He had an element of caution and foresight in his system lacking to most Novakkans.
It suddenly occurred to her that Chris Darby, however remote from Unor, might one day die at the hands of her own brother.
CHAPTER SIX
SHE was given three days to make ready for departure. There was so much to be done she couldn’t have accomplished it all in a month.
She wanted to hold a big feast, to say goodbye to her thousands of Unorian friends, but those that were not driven there to work wouldn’t come near the castle.
Her three days of preparation were cut to two. Moxol told her that patrol ships were moving out from the spacelane in force and that their objective was Unor.
She became as eager as the others to get off the planet. She felt that the populace would be spared if the Earthmen found the planet abandoned by the Novakkans.
The cruiser was comfortable, but its Novakkan crewmen were surly until Moxol came aboard in space. It followed the first ship up. The repaired SYZ ship came next. They stood there in the empty reaches waiting for Rahn Buskner to complete some task on the planet.
As she moved from port to visicom and back, Aline fought to control the surging in her throat. The planet was a great blue sphere with a circle of white at each pole. Its features were not clear from the port, but on the visicom she could make out the villages, the hills and the sprawling castle where she had played and studied and grown and finally met Chris Darby.
A picture of him was there in her mind as she thought of her mother and the things she had taught her. And suddenly she was blinded with tears. He should’ve told her what he and his commander were going to do, she felt. He should’ve known that her love was big enough to be trusted until the end of time. He should’ve given her a chance to show him that her mother couldn’t possibly be guilty of treason.
The talk on the SYZ ship the night the Earthmen tried to escape had been vague and confusing. It was of things that happened years ago on an Eg planet. They’d said her mother had sent word to Earth Council of ships grouped behind a dead star. The information misled the Earth fleet, and raiders, striking suddenly, captured the reparation settlement and almost caused the war between Earth and SYZ to flare anew.
In the confusion they hadn’t given her mother a chance to explain.
She dried her tears, for Moxol was crossing from the raider to take charge of the cruiser. Rahn Buskner’s ship came off the planet like a bolt and the four ships went Into full power and continued until they reached the energy field under Arcadia. There they rendezvoused with more ships than she had dreamed existed.
“We’ve come billions of miles,” she breathed in Moxol’s presence, “but on the cosmograph we’ve hardly moved. We seem no closer to the Eg System than when we started.”
“Think of everything moving at high velocity in space as moving in waves like light,” he said. On graph paper he drew something like a coil, then varied it with wavy lines back and forth. He stabbed a marker at the top of the paper, again at the bottom. “The distance from here to there,” he explained, “is the sum of the distance round and around that coil, or back and forth along those waves. To cross a relative distance in space you have to travel miles.” He folded the paper and punched a hole through it. “The secret,” he added, “is in finding an energy field and plunging directly through. And Novakkans in their endless roaming have charted more energy fields than Earth will record in another hundred years.”
He tapped the cosmograph. “In less than three weeks we’ll be standing between the Twins and Razor. Just beyond is another energy field that will bring us out off the SYZ and Eg System spacelane.
In the following weeks Aline spent much of her time studying astrography and the operation of the cruiser. She was encouraged by Moxol who told her they would soon be parted, possibly for years.
With Moxol aboard, the Novakkans were less distant and showed her amazing things that could be done with the cruiser if it got in a fight, but explained that it wasn’t heavily enough armed to face patrol ships or Earth cruisers.
She gathered that it was to be left with her and that she was to be left on an Eg planet after all resistance was subdued.
But the plan was not carried out. They reached the Twins and Razor, rendezvoused with more ships, then Rahn Buskner divided the forces, sending some two hundred raiders out toward the edge of the galaxy to learn what Earth had accomplished in the way of colonizing in the direction of Andromeda.
She was apparently forgotten. Moxol was called back to a raider and then to the main force which was to push on toward the spacelane, Her Novakkan crewmen fumed. They didn’t want to be aboard the cruiser when the fighting began.
At the last minute a message came ordering the cruiser to join the main force. But it was already bottled up in the midst of those plunging into the energy field, outward bound, and couldn’t turn back immediately.
When it returned to the Twins and Razor the main force had vanished, and Patrol ships that had lain in hiding as the Novakkans passed came out to investigate.
The Novakkan crewmen forgot their surliness and fought. The cruiser was no match for the heavily armed patrol, but managed to escape between the twin planets, and make a run for Septo. Inside the system, the Novakkans played hide and seek among the planets and again escaped by plunging so close to the star that the patrol ships dared not follow.
Parts of the cruiser melted and Aline thought she would burn to death, but the Novakkans seemed not to mind the heat. She gathered that their greenish skin protected them in some way others were not protected. They packed her in ice which quickly melted, then clothed her in a spacesuit and sealed her in a vacuum chamber.
When they emerged beyond the star she had dehydrated nearly a fourth of her normal weight and was so weak she couldn’t stand for more than a few minutes at a time.
The patrol picked them up again two days out of Arkl and the nightmare began all over. It seemed impossible that they could escape, but the resources of the Novakkans had not been exhausted. They found a meteor belt among the planets, led the patrol ships directly into it where two of them were destroyed and the others delayed. Again they fled, cutting back toward Wekell and the energy field between it and Andam.
Just off Wekell a small group of Novakkan ships appeared. They had come from far out and were on their way to rendezvous with Rahn Buskner. They made short work of the patrol.
Surliness returned aboard the cruiser. The Novakkans hated the light ship that had to run rather than fight. Quarrels broke out among them and one was killed. The others talked of dropping down on a planet and taking their anger out on the undefended populace.
Aline was rapidly recovering her strength. At this point she buckled on a raygun and a long slender blade that had belonged to her mother and marched into thei
r presence.
“I am the daughter of Rahn Buskner,” she said. “From now on you will obey my orders.” She was astonished to note that her voice sounded much like Moxol’s.
The Novakkans made no reply, but their quarreling subsided, and the cruiser entered the energy field with the raiders.
Off the spacelane they rendezvoused with a large force ringing energy fields through which any Earth reinforcements from the direction of Andromeda would have to come. The main force had already cut the spaceway and driven a wedge between SYZ and the Eg System. They were subduing resistance on the Eg planets and at the same time reaching toward SYZ with the object of drawing out the Earth fleet.
It seemed unreal. Aline had been seventeen when the crippled patrol ship dropped down on Unor. She had never seen so many injured men.
Now she was eighteen. She had lived as much in the past few months as she had in her entire life before. She had witnessed fighting in space and narrowly escaped death herself. But those things were insignificant, she felt. Whole planets were being overrun. Hundreds of star liners had been destroyed or captured.
“Thousands upon thousands of people, much like herself, were being killed or subdued.
And this was just the beginning. They were reaching toward SYZ and the planet Delos, about which Chris Darby had told her so many meaningful things. She tried not to think of it, for anything that reminded her of Chris Darby gave her a sense of trembling helplessness.
And as each hour flowed inexorably into eternity more Novakkan ships arrived, some from the very fringes of the galaxy, to swell the vengeful might of Rahn Buskner. It seemed that nothing could stop him.
The crew of the cruiser was changed. Eight men from a system she’d never heard of, or seen on a cosmograph, came aboard. Their skin was lighter, their hair silvery, and their eyes reddish brown like Moxol’s. They were not giants like the typical Novakkan. The tallest of them was well under seven feet.
Nor did they wear the colorful skirts and broad belts of the Novakkan fighting man. Their close-fitting jackets and trousers looked like metal.
But their language was the same, a mixture of all languages.
Their leader’s name was Acra-non. Under questioning he admitted they were not true Novakkans. They were the sons of men originally inhabiting the planet Denovo, who, though now scattered, had developed a culture of their own. He was reticent about telling why they had answered the Novakkan call, but finally admitted the legend of the pact had come down to them.
They asked many questions about Rahn Buskner and, as if to draw her out, repeated superstitious tales that he was immortal. They questioned her about her relationship, seemed surprised when they learned she was his daughter by adoption only. They treated her with deference and made no complaint about armament of the cruiser.
They addressed her as Reeal-den and it was not until later that she learned what it meant. They used the term reeal to describe the red after glow of a photonic blast. She asked Acra-non bluntly what den meant. He shook his head, but finally translated it as spirit plus power.
It became clear then and it made her smile. In the way they used it, Reeal-den meant Crimson Goddess.
They were capable of handling the cruiser well, as they demonstrated, but seemed more interested in keeping it in good repair, and when it drifted too close to a battle-scarred raider, and the raider’s hard-bitten commander, in a fuming rage at not being with the main force and in the midst of the fighting, demanded to know by what right a toy ship wore Novakkan markings in their midst, they manned the guns and ordered him to apologize to the Crimson Goddess or get blown out of the cosmos.
The exchange attracted attention and visicoms crackled with the information that the cruiser carried Rahn Buskner’s daughter. The raider, its commander still fuming, withdrew, and the Denovians treated Aline with even greater respect.
At times they were strangely naive, too innocent appearing, and Aline began to suspect that they had a purpose not wholly in keeping with Novakkan vengeance.
When orders came to proceed to the Eg System they placed the cruiser in the forefront of the armada, ignoring advice to the contrary, and warned flankers to keep their distance. They were so audacious that Aline feared for their lives. Novakkans were not accustomed to honoring anything but force. Giving place to a cruiser that couldn’t deliver a broadside that would more than blacken the skin of a raider was new to them.
Trouble might’ve developed then and there had not a task force of the SYZ fleet come out of the energy field. It appeared behind them and struck with startling suddenness.
Aline learned of it when Acra-non appeared and informed her, “Part of our forces are engaged.” He led her to the chartroom and pointed out on the cosmograph where the action was taking place, and explained that other ships in the armada were reversing their line of motion to turn back against the Earthmen.
“Does Reeal-den wish to move in close and witness the effectiveness of her strategy?” he asked with a touch of irony. “Or does she care to conserve her energies for greater things ahead?”
His tone disturbed her and she couldn’t read its meaning. Then the realization came that men back there were dying some of them from SYZ, some who may have known Chris Darby. Her hands trembled, and she suddenly remembered how her mother had trembled and gone pale when she mentioned Novakkan vengeance.
CHAPTER SEVEN
SHE ordered Acra-non to ignore the action and proceed toward the Eg System. Her reasoning was forthright. If she approached the scene of action Novakkan ships would ring the cruiser with a protective screen, not because they valued the cruiser or relished the task, but because she was Rahn Buskner’s daughter.
She could do nothing back there, but ahead she could begin the search for her father’s people and the origin of her blood line. On an Eg planet she might learn her mother’s fate, might even find some way to help her.
And she wanted solid ground under her feet again, not the deck of the cruiser. She had been in space, with nothing but men and bristling guns around her, much too long.
Acra-non held the cruiser on course and forty-eight hours later offered his congratulations.
“For what?” she said.
“Reports indicate the enemy behind us was completely annihilated,” he explained, “and your armada is again proceeding in your wake with only minor losses.” He spoke as if she had planned and directed the battle.
The thought came that he was prying, trying to discover her true feelings, or to learn whether she had a secret means of communicating with Moxol or Rahn Buskner. She studied his features, his deep reddish brown eyes, the humorous lines around his full mouth. He seemed innocent enough.
As they drew near the Eg System she became restless. With the green-tinged giants as crewmen, in their flight from the Patrol, she’d been too excited to think about herself. Now she was tired of being alone. Thoughts of Chris Darby, her mother, Unor and Delos recurred too often.
Just before mealtime she dressed in a colorful Novakkan thigh-length skirt, buckled on her blade and photon gun and went along the corridor to the wardroom.
Acra-non sat just inside the doorway. His metallic-looking jacket lay at his feet. He was staring at it with fixed intensity.
As she watched, the jacket moved. It rose on its tail, balancing with its arms, climbed his legs and sat on his lap.
As she held her breath, he lifted the jacket to the table, leaned back. Again it moved, crept to, the edge of the table and leaped to his lap.
“It’s alive!” she breathed.
He came to his feet like a spring, stood at attention, and as if knowing he was not properly dressed to receive her, the jacket squirmed up his body and waited for him to put his arms into the sleeves. No fastener was visible, but it closed itself in front and hung neatly as if standing inspection.
“It’s alive,” she repeated.
Acra-non nodded. “But of course Reeal-den knows there is no such thing as totally inanimate matter.”
She went on into the room, gave him permission to be seated, told him he must dine with her, and prodded him to have his jacket repeat its performance. Instead, he brought out his blade, reversed it and passed it to her. As her fingers began closing around the haft, it suddenly snatched away flashed through the air and was back in his hand.
“My apologies and the apologies of my symbiosis,” he said, patting the blade gently. He passed it again. This time the haft snuggled into her hand, the metal lifted of itself, and she got the impression that she could fight beside the best Novakkan swordsman in the galaxy.
Not was that all. He showed her that his raygun could be friend or enemy. In her hand, its muzzle twisted to point at her heart until he held it a moment and did something to the metal.
A month ago, she knew, she couldn’t have believed such things. She could hardly believe them now. But he made it all seem simple.
“The universe is broad,” he said. She noticed that he used the term universe rather than galaxy. “Somewhere in it is everything possible to imagine.”
This was not satisfying. She continued to prod him, and he talked on then and throughout their dinner together. It was not until later that she realized he had hardly touched his food.
After he was gone a dreamy lassitude settled over her. The reality of the ship, her quarters, and the faint vibration from the reactors, seemed to recede. She was not asleep and memory of his talk remained. There was something confusing about it, especially his effort to explain directions of evolutions in inanimate matter.
“Toward intelligence,” he had said. “Higher intelligence. Everything, from microbes to planets, evolves in that direction. At the point of awareness of self, conscious evolution occurs and it is possible to bridge across time.”
Memory of her experience under the stairs in the tower on Unor shocked her alert. There was some relationship to what she had heard. And then she recalled that her mother had had a similar experience, an impression of life within inanimate substance, on an Eg planet.
