“I am sorry Mikach. I won’t try to excuse what we’re going to do by calling you a disloyal subject. The overlord ploy was a stunt. I know I can’t control your people, at least not for indefinite periods. And we need your metals. So after this is over, please remember that we will always be ready to resume commerce with you.”
The Archobserver’s anger dissipated before this nebulous attack He obviously had no idea what was coming.
“Last night you saw our artillery; bomb throwers, I believe you call them.”
Several men in Doomsday blue caught the drift, and their eyes widened. Mikach was not so perceptive. “Yes, the catapults.”
“They are more than that, Mikach. What you saw last night was a limited demonstration. We were operating at the minimum range possible—about six thousand feet. We can project bombs more than ten miles horizontally with these weapons. And the maximum vertical range is—”
Mikach interrupted with an inarticulate roar. He lunged to his feet, superstition forgotten. “You’ll die for this, infidel! To think we aided you because you ascribed your own treachery to your enemy.” Mikach turned to signal the doorman. There were armed Celestial Servants just outside. If he gave the word, there would be a massacre.
“Sit down, Mikach,” Jolle said. His voice was not remarkably loud, nor even tense, but the Archobserver turned back to face the crown.
Tatja took advantage of the break. “We aren’t foolish, Mikach. If we don’t return, the plan goes into effect automatically. So why don’t you do as General Jolle says? Sit down and hear the rest.” Mikach signed to the doorman, but he did not sit down.
“You know the power of a single high-explosive shell. Don’t doubt the accuracy of our fire. Though our guns are fourteen thousand feet below the target, my gunmen can put one out of two shells within one hundred feet of the mirror. In fact, the location of your Eye is one of the most precisely measured points in the world; the best mapmakers use its coordinates as a base.
“And I suggest that you do not attack our artillery pieces. They are vulnerable, but there are nearly two hundred of them. At this moment they are loaded and aimed. You could not destroy them all before they put out your Eye.
“Under this duress, we ask again: Let our party ascend to the Eye. We will not harm the instrument. Repara—”
“No! Better to destroy it cleanly than by taint.” The priest’s face was flushed and puffy. Behind him, there was a barely perceptible exchange of glances between Reformist Observers. They preferred taint to destruction.
It was Jolle who answered the dogmatism. “You blaspheme, Mikach. The face of God will still stand a billion light-years beyond your blue, whether your Eye is put out or spat upon. Spittle may be expunged, but if your Eye be destroyed, then you will be lost from God.”
It was a Reformist argument couched in Orthodox jargon. For a moment Mikach was silent. He realized that others were thinking what this dark-faced foreigner had just said. The priest’s face was calm again; only the trembling of his voice betrayed the struggle within. He neither nodded nor explicitly stated his submission, but asked, “When will you ascend, then?”
Tatja answered, “Sometime in the afternoon. Say twenty-six hours. We’ll stay here and rest until that time.”
Now the other nodded. “Very well. We’ll clear some quarters for you.” He leaned across the table, and for a moment his face twisted with the anger of a moment before. “My people will dedicate much of their remaining existence to punishing you.”
The generals smiled at this threat, made by the leader of a second-rate military power against the greatest nation in the world. Tatja didn’t smile. She respected the determination and technical competence that lay behind the Doomsday religion. Had she been nothing more than the Queen of Crownesse, this would have been a threat to fear. Mikach’s promise was the sort which starts crusades.
TWENTY-THREE
Someone had given him a crossbow. It was a powerful model, its cross-spars steeply angled. One full winding could shoot its entire six-bolt magazine. And each bolt contained enough explosive to put a hole through three inches of wood.
At the moment Svir felt no curiosity as to why he, who barely knew how to sight a bow, had been given the weapon. He had not noticed that out of the two-hundred-member party, only Jolle, Tatja, and he were armed.
Jolle and Tatja had originally planned to make the ascent alone, but the ingenious Doomsdaymen had made that impossible. The priests claimed that all the picture-making equipment was at O’rmouth for a general overhaul. This was plausible, since the observatory was too small to contain a machine shop. Unfortunately, more than a hundred Celestial Servants were then needed to carry the gear necessary to Jolle’s project. The climb would take two days, with stops at Doo’d’en outposts along the way. So there had to be a number of Crown’s Men along to watch this mob of potential saboteurs. Everyone was surprised when Marget demanded they all go unarmed. The Servants were pleased with the requirement, the Crown’s Men frankly angry.
If he had thought about it, Svir would have understood why only the three of them were armed … but he was thinking about very little.
For two days, they had walked up a steep tunnel toward the top of the world. Above the snowpack ceiling, the wind hummed endlessly across the mountain face. Where light holes punctured the roof, the hum became a scream. Sunlight glared brilliant through those holes, splashed whiteness on the figures trudging slowly upwards.
For a thousand feet at a time, the tunnel climbed so steep there were steps cut in the ice. Yet this journey was a walk in paradise compared to the climb that had faced the first explorers. They had gone across the top of the snow, through the wind, with no shelters along the way. The atmospheric pressure here was only one-fifth that at sea level. It was difficult to maintain body temperature, much less to work. If it had not been for what the Doo’d’en called the “perfume of life,” no amount of sacrifice or faith would have been sufficient to build the observatory and live there.
The perfume of life—to “heathen” chemists, it was simply oxygen. At sea level the partial pressure of oxygen was about three pounds per square inch. At O’rmouth it was 1.4. It had been known for almost a century that the partial pressure of oxygen determines whether the air can sustain life. Thus, though scentless, oxygen is the perfume of life. For the last forty years Doo’d’en had used differential liquefaction to produce large amounts of oxygen. The gas was compressed into containers and allowed to slowly escape—as perfume might from an aerator. With some skill, it was possible to raise the partial pressure of oxygen at the observatory from 0.7 to 1.4 pounds per square inch, even though the total pressure inside the observatory was the same as outside. The procedure was simple and effective. No hermetic seals were needed.
Thirty men pulled the carts carrying the oxygen tanks. The aerators could occasionally be heard behind the hum of the wind. For the benefit of the Crown’s Men, Tatja had insisted on bringing enough tanks to maintain a partial pressure of 2.0 psi. The enriched air made their climb possible. Barely. And after two days in march, the Celestial Servants seemed as fatigued as the lowlanders; the Servants were carrying the equipment and hauling the carts. Several times the group became so spread out that the aerators couldn’t cover everyone. Then, without any warning, walking became impossible, and Tatja or Jolle would push them into a compact formation and move the tanks so everyone was within ten feet of “perfume.”
Each step sent bright spurts of pain up Svir’s calves. Each breath burned at his lungs. At first, the task of walking had made it easy for him to retreat from the events around him. No more. No more. For the first time in twenty hours, Svir found himself facing reality. Ancho was dead. Cor was dead. He believed that. And now that he did, the hate could blossom. Profirio must die—not because he wished to kill millions, but because he had killed the most important person in the universe. By himself, Svir had little chance against the monster. But he had two powerful allies, and he had a weapon. For the m
oment, he had a purpose.
Where the tunnel cut near the surface, the roof was pearly bright. Elsewhere, the light was fading. The sun would be lowering now, its light shining but indirectly through the roof holes. And in some places, the tunnel was very dark. Algae pots were useless in this cold, and a torch would consume more oxygen than one hundred men. The men around him were shadows, bent to their own pain. He knew that Jolle and Tatja were somewhere behind the whole group. It was a strategic certainty that one of those men who appeared so tired was actually alert, calculating. Walking behind the rest, the queen and the alien could watch with sensitive eyes. If they did not discover Profirio, they at least would not be surprised from behind.
Svir had ended up near the head of the column. Even with good lighting, his two friends would have been out of sight most of the time.
Hmm. If he were Profirio, he would walk up here, too. Svir looked around with new interest. Who seemed a bit too lively? That was probably the wrong thing to look for: Profirio would be a great actor. Under other circumstances these thoughts would have filled him with fear: It was dark, the figures were indistinct, and one of them, perhaps right behind him, was a monster.
Svir was abruptly aware of the cold. He pulled his parka close and tensioned his crossbow.
There was conversation nearby. Low muttering came past the sounds of the wind. There was more than one voice; maybe three or four. Some people can grumble even when they’re exhausted. And one of the speakers might be Profirio, gathering supporters. No doubt he could be as fiendishly persuasive as Tatja and Jolle. Svir dropped back till he was even with the sounds. His prospects were in front of the lead cart. Two of them were pulling it. The six-foot tank on the cart emitted its perfume in tiny hisses.
A hand closed on his shoulder. He leaped half a foot into the air, spastically squeezing his crossbow’s trigger. But the safety was set and he was spared the mortal embarrassment of shooting himself with an explosive bolt.
“Sorry, friend, I slipped.”
Svir turned to look at the other. It was possible the fellow really had slipped. Though the floor was covered with decomposed granite, there were open patches of ice. But at the head of the column, such patches were quite dry. The man released his arm. There was a glimmer from above, and Svir saw that he was fairly old, though muscular. This could be it! The other’s face showed just a bit too much fatigue. And the man was a Celestial Servant. Profirio would most likely pose as one of them.
Svir made no attempt to start a conversation. He had a dubious advantage over Profirio. The alien must nullify the armed men in the party. Since Svir was one-third of that force, Profirio would either manipulate him with conversation—or kill him. The ploys were limited, and for once it might be possible to compete with a mind like Tatja’s. When the “old soldier” finally spoke, Svir felt a flash of triumph.
“You’re one of the Crown’s Men, aren’t you?” The soldier’s voice quavered overmuch, Svir thought.
“That’s right,” he replied, with as much disinterest as he could muster.
“I don’t mean offense, but I see you’re armed. You must be important. Maybe you can tell me. Why are you doing this?”
“Doing what?” His reply was not an evasion. The Servant’s question seemed disconnected from the dangers that floated through his mind.
“Why do you trespass here? Why do you insult a religion that’s never done you harm?” The voice had an innocent, bewildered tone.
The official reason was that this was Marget’s whim. To her generals she had presented no more explanation, though some of them were happy to humor her. They thought the Doomsdaymen needed a leash. Certainly Svir couldn’t blurt out the real reason for this trip; only Profirio would understand that.
“Perhaps you thought,” the Servant continued, since Svir seemed bound to silence, “that we didn’t show you proper respect. I love my people, sir, and I love my religion. But I’ve been south. I know that we’re a pretty mean group. We own a beautiful stretch of wasteland and the conviction we’re specially blessed by the Almighty. We must be arrogant. If we weren’t, we’d have no reason to stay here.”
Old soldiers could be this sharp, but no ordinary soldier could express himself so smoothly, and with such a vocabulary. Svir set his thumb on the bow’s safety.
The Servant continued, “We make a big show of fierceness, but this was the first time in a hundred years that Celestial Servants have been in combat. I always thought military drill was a frivolous, enjoyable pastime; no one ever died, as they so often do in mine and construction work. But this morning my men—”
“Your men?” Svir broke in, trying to keep the right amount of curiosity in his voice.
“Yes, I’m a Celestial Servant with Stellar Effulgence. That’s about the same as a colonel in your army.”
Damn. That could explain his diction.
“It was strange to see men die, fighting. We thought we were protecting people and land. Now I see it was for nothing. What is the point?” He sounded hurt, bewildered, almost like Cor had sounded by the watering stop. Svir turned to give an honest reply, but the other had dropped back in the formation. Emotionally, Svir was convinced of the fellow’s sincerity. In a perverse way, that was the strongest sign that he had been speaking to the illusive Profirio; when you were sure they were sincere, then you knew you had been fooled. He brought his crossbow to port arms, turned, and let the oxygen cart creak past him. The other was lost in the mob that walked behind the cart.
Profirio? Maybe that was why the other moved away. But then, why hadn’t he killed Svir and taken the bow? The alien could certainly have done so, barehanded and without noise.
Minutes later, the tunnel leveled out, and the windsound died. The observatory! He tripped on a stone step. The walls, the floor—they were solid rock now. He saw the carts behind him being pushed over the step. Ahead, the darkness was absolute. If the whole observatory were built this way it must be a pretty dreary place, with no view except of heaven.
Someone brushed past him, moving fast. He lashed out, but his wrist was caught from behind. “It’s us,” Tatja whispered in his ear. He realized they were moving quietly to the head of the file, to be the first into the observatory. Jolle was taking no chances. Svir tried to follow them, but they were virtually running through the darkness. He had to slow down and cautiously feel his way … . Far ahead, Jolle was pounding on a door and shouting.
It would be an interesting bit of treachery if the High Eye Observers chose not to open up; their visitors could never make it back to O’rmouth without more oxygen. But thousands of feet below, where there was still grass and air, the gunners had instructions to fire unless they received helios from Tatja at specified times. This point had been made excruciatingly clear to all concerned.
A trapezoid of sunlight appeared ahead, casting ragged shadows down the rough-cut granite of the hallway. Svir squinted into brilliance. Beyond that doorway, just a few feet away, was the end of their long journey.
TWENTY-FOUR
Dazzling sunlight was everywhere. Tall windows marched around the walls, and beyond them was the top of the world. The sky was indigo, as if the sun had already set. Look down and see the Doomsday Range, frozen waves of white tossed on a frozen sea. Here and there, clouds nestled between the peaks. Pale brown clung to one horizon, a trick of the westering sun … or the edge of the Central Desert?
The High Eye was not quite at the top of He’ gate: Some hundred yards west of the dome a scarp rose fifty feet higher, shielding the observatory from the winds that had pursued them here. The limestone stood brown and yellow above smooth snowdrifts. Svir turned; there was the stone hallway they had just been through. The snow lay powdery in the cracks and joints of the yellow masonry. Beyond the windshadow, it whirled with crystal violence around the stonework. Four hundred feet from the observatory, the hallway became a true tunnel, disappearing into the permanent snow pack. A large wind turbine stood north of the tunnel, its snout stuck into th
e gale; the derrick squatted on a contraption of gears and pistons. A covered trough extended from the turbine back to the observatory. The trough was sheathed by ice. A haze of steam or ice billowed up along its whole length.
A perfectly ordinary doorway was set between two of the windows. It swung open and a heavily clothed figure stepped inside. Though Doomsday born, the fellow swayed drunkenly, gasping for breath. He shut the door and sagged against the wall. Exterior maintenance must have been a killing job.
Inside the dome, a slow fan shuffled at the air. Dead air must be exhausted, and the “perfume of life” be kept properly concentrated. Thus the interior was not partitioned into rooms; the entire dome was visible at a glance. Here there was none of the ornament they had seen at O’rmouth, where there were laymen to be impressed. The floor was divided into sectors. Several were empty, reserved for the newly arrived equipment. Others were piled high with supplies, oxygen tanks, and astronomical equipment.
At the center stood the reason for it all: the High Eye itself. The telescope was the largest in the world; even if it hadn’t been set at the top of the world, it would have inspired awe. The sixty-inch mirror was hidden in a plastic and ceramic webbing that extended fifty feet into the air to support the secondary mirror, which was huge in its own right. The secondary sent incoming light back slantwise to picture-making machines next to the main mirror. The entire structure could be turned to follow any point in the sky. Doo’d’en claimed that twenty-five thousand ounces of iron had gone into the steel for the bearings that supported it. No religious ornamentation was necessary to make it seem marvelous.
For a few moments Svir was absorbed by things he’d dreamed of all his life, but thought he’d never see.
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