“There is no harm done,” shouted Wienis. “Keep your places. Power will return in a moment.”
He turned to the captain of the guard who stood stiffly at attention. “What is it, Captain?”
“Your highness,” was the instant response, “the palace is surrounded by the people of the city.”
“What do they want?” snarled Wienis.
“A priest is at the head. He has been identified as High Priest Poly Verisof. He demands the immediate release of Mayor Salvor Hardin and cessation of the war against the Foundation.” The report was made in the expressionless tones of an officer, but his eyes shifted uneasily.
Wienis cried, “if any of the rabble attempt to pass the palace gates, blast them out of existence. For the moment, nothing more. Let them howl! There will be an accounting tomorrow.”
The torches had been distributed now, and the ballroom was again alight. Wienis rushed to the throne, still standing by the window, and dragged the stricken, wax-faced Lepold to his feet.
“Come with me.” He cast one look out of the window. The city was pitch-black. From below there were the hoarse confused cries of the mob. Only toward the fight, where the Argolid Temple stood was there illumination. He swore angrily, and dragged the king away.
Wienis burst into his chambers, the five guardsmen at his heels. Lepold followed, wide-eyed, scared speechless.
“Hardin,” said Wienis, huskily, “you are playing with forces too great for you.”
The mayor ignored the speaker. In the pearly light of the pocket nucleo-bulb at his side, he remained quietly seated, a slightly ironic smile on his face.
“Good morning, your majesty,” he said to Lepold. “I congratulate you on your coronation.”
“Hardin,” cried Wienis again, “order your priests back to their jobs.”
Hardin looked up coolly. “Order them yourself, Wienis, and see who is playing with forces too great for whom. Right now, there’s not a wheel turning in Anacreon. There’s not a light burning, except in the temples. There’s not a drop of water running, except in the temples. On the wintry half of the planet, there’s not a calorie of heat, except in the temples. The hospitals are taking in no more patients. The power plants have shut down. All ships are grounded. If you don’t like it, Wienis, you can order the priests back to their jobs. I don’t wish to.”
“By Space, Hardin, I will. If it’s to be a showdown, so be it. We’ll see if your priests can withstand the army. Tonight, every temple on the planet will be put under army supervision.”
“Very good, but how are you going to give the orders? Every line of communication on the planet is shut down. You’ll find that neither wave nor hyperwave will work. In fact, the only communicator of the planet that will work – outside of the temples, of course – is the televisor right here in this room, and I’ve fitted it only for reception.”
Wienis struggled vainly for breath, and Hardin continued, “If you wish you can order your army into the Argolid Temple just outside the palace and then use the ultrawave sets there to contact other portions of the planet. But if you do that, I’m afraid the army contigent will be cut to pieces by the mob, and then what will protect your palace, Wienis? And your lives, Wienis?”
Wienis said thickly, “We can hold out, devil. We’ll last the day. Let the mob howl and let the power die, but we’ll hold out. And when the news comes back that the Foundation has been taken, your precious mob will find upon what vacuum their religion has been built, and they’ll desert your priests and turn against them. I give you until noon tomorrow, Hardin, because you can stop the power on Anacreon but you can’t stop my fleet.” His voice croaked exultantly. “They’re on their way, Hardin, with the great cruiser you yourself ordered repaired, at the head.”
Hardin replied lightly. “Yes, the cruiser I myself ordered repaired – but in my own way. Tell me, Wienis, have you ever heard of a hyperwave relay? No, I see you haven’t. Well, in about two minutes you’ll find out what one can do.”
The televisor flashed to life as he spoke, and he amended, “No, in two seconds. Sit down, Wienis. and listen.”
~ * ~
7.
Theo Aporat was one of the very highest ranking priests of Anacreon. From the standpoint of precedence alone, he deserved his appointment as head priest- attendant upon the flagship Wienis.
But it was not only rank or precedence. He knew the ship. He had worked directly under the holy men from the Foundation itself in repairing the ship. He had gone over the motors under their orders. He had rewired the ‘visors; revamped the communications system; replated the punctured hull; reinforced the beams. He had even been permitted to help while the wise men of the Foundation had installed a device so holy it had never been placed in any previous ship, but had been reserved only for this magnificent colossus of a vessel – a hyperwave relay.
It was no wonder that he felt heartsick over the purposes to which the glorious ship was perverted. He had never wanted to believe what Verisof had told him – that the ship was to be used for appalling wickedness; that its guns were to be turned on the great Foundation. Turned on that Foundation, where he had been trained as a youth, from which all blessedness was derived.
Yet he could not doubt now, after what the admiral had told him.
How could the king, divinely blessed, allow this abominable act? Or was it the king? Was it not, perhaps, an action of the accursed regent, Wienis, without the knowledge of the king at all. And it was the son of this same Wienis that was the admiral who five minutes before had told him:
“Attend to your souls and your blessings, priest. I will attend to my ship.”
Aporat smiled crookedly. He would attend to his souls and his blessings – and also to his cursings; and Prince Lefkin would whine soon enough.
He had entered the general communications room now. His. acolyte preceded him and the two officers in charge made no move to interfere. The head priest-attendant had the right of free entry anywhere on the ship.
“Close the door,” Aporat ordered, and looked at the chronometer. It lacked Five minutes of twelve. He had timed it well.
With quick practiced motions, he moved the little levers that opened all communications, so that every part of the two-mile-long ship was within reach of his voice and his image.
“Soldiers of the royal flagship Wienis, attend! It is your priest-attendant that speaks!” The sound of his voice reverberated, he knew, from the stem atom blast in the extreme rear to the navigation tables in the prow.
“Your ship,” he cried, “is engaged in sacrilege. Without your knowledge, it is performing such an act as will doom the soul of every man among you to the eternal frigidity of space! Listen! It is the intention of your commander to take this ship to the Foundation and there to bombard that source of all blessings into submission to his sinful will. And since that is his intention, I, in the name of the Galactic Spirit, remove him from his command, for there is no command where the blessing of the Galactic Spirit has been withdrawn. The divine king himself may not maintain his kingship without the consent of the Spirit.”
His voice took on a deeper tone, while the acolyte listened with veneration and the two soldiers with mounting fear. “And because this ship is upon such a devil’s errand, the blessing of the Spirit is removed from it as well.”
He lifted his arms solemnly, and before a thousand televisors throughout the ship, soldiers cowered, as the stately image of their priest-attendant spoke:
“In the name of the Galactic Spirit and of his prophet, Hari Seldon, and of his interpreters, the holy men of the Foundation, I curse this ship. Let the televisors of this ship, which are its eyes, become blind. Let its grapples, which are its arms, be paralyzed. Let the nuclear blasts, which are its fists, lose their function. Let the motors, which are its heart, cease to beat. Let the communications, which are its voice, become dumb. Let its ventilations, which are its breath, fade. Let its lights, which are its soul, shrivel into nothing. In the name of the Gala
ctic Spirit, I so curse this ship.”
And with his last word, at the stroke of midnight, a hand, light-years distant in the Argolid Temple, opened an ultrawave relay, which at the instantaneous speed of the ultrawave, opened another on the flagship Wienis.
And the ship died!
For it is the chief characteristic of the religion of science that it works, and that such curses as that of Aporat’s are really deadly.
Aporat saw the darkness close down on the ship and heard the sudden ceasing of the soft, distant purring of the hyperatomic motors. He exulted and from the pocket of his long robe withdrew a self-powered nucleo-bulb that filled the room with pearly light.
He looked down at the two soldiers who, brave men though they undoubtedly were, writhed on their knees in the last extremity of mortal terror. “Save our souls, your reverence. We are poor men, ignorant of the crimes of our leaders,” one whimpered.
“Follow,” said Aporat, sternly. “Your soul is not yet lost.”
The ship was a turmoil of darkness in which fear was so thick and palpable, it was all but a miasmic smell. Soldiers crowded close wherever Aporat and his circle of light passed, striving to touch the hem of his robe, pleading for the tiniest scrap of mercy.
And always his answer was, “Follow me!”
He found Prince Lefkin, groping his way through the officers’ quarters, cursing loudly for lights. The admiral stared at the priest-attendant with hating eyes.
“There you are!” Lefkin inherited his blue eyes from his mother, but there was that about the hook in his nose and the squint in his eye that marked him as the son of Wienis. “What is the meaning of your treasonable actions? Return the power to the ship. I am commander here.”
“No longer,” said Aporat, somberly.
Lefkin looked about wildly. “Seize that man. Arrest him, or by Space, I will send every man within reach of my voice out the air lock in the nude.” He paused, and then shrieked, “It is your admiral that orders. Arrest him.”
Then, as he lost his head entirely, “Are you allowing yourselves to be fooled by this mountebank, this harlequin? Do you cringe before a religion compounded of clouds and moonbeams? This man is an imposter and the Galactic Spirit he speaks of a fraud of the imagination devised to–”
Aporat interrupted furiously. “Seize the blasphemer. You listen to him at the peril of your souls.”
And promptly, the noble admiral went down under the clutching hands of a score of soldiers.
“Take him with you and follow me.”
Aporat turned, and with Lefkin dragged along after him, and the corridors behind black with soldiery, he returned to the communications room. There, he ordered the ex-commander before the one televisor that worked.
“Order the rest of the fleet to cease course and to prepare for the return to Anacreon.”
The disheveled Lefkin, bleeding, beaten, and half stunned, did so.
“And now,” continued Aporat, grimly, “we are in contact with Anacreon on the hyperwave beam. Speak as I order you.”
Lefkin made a gesture of negation, and the mob in the room and the others crowding the corridor beyond, growled fearfully.
“Speak!” said Aporat. “Begin: The Anacreonian navy–”
Lefkin began.
~ * ~
8.
There was absolute silence in Wienis’ chambers when the image of Prince Lefkin appeared at the televisor. There had been one startled gasp from the regent at the haggard face and shredded uniform of his son, and then he collapsed into a chair, face contorted with surprise and apprehension.
Hardin listened stolidly, hands clasped lightly in his lap, while the just-crowned King Lepold sat shriveled in the most shadowy comer, biting spasmodically at his goldbraided sleeve. Even the soldiers had lost the emotionless stare that is the prerogative of the military, and, from where they lined up against the door, nuclear blasts ready, peered furtively at the figure upon the televisor.
Lefkin spoke, reluctantly, with a tired voice that paused at intervals as though he were being prompted-and not gently:
“The Anacreonian navy ... aware of the nature of its mission ... and refusing to be a party ... to abominable sacrilage ... is returning to Anacreon ... with the following ultimatum issued ... to those blaspheming sinners ... who would dare to use profane force ... against the Foundation ... source of all blessings ... and against the Galactic Spirit. Cease at once all war against ... the true faith . . . and guarantee in a manner suiting us of the navy ... as represented by our ... priest-attendant, Theo Aporat ... that such war will never in the future ... be resumed, and that”– here a long pause, and then continuing –”and that the one-time prince regent, Wienis ... be imprisoned ... and tried before an ecclesiastical court ... for his crimes. Otherwise the royal navy ... upon returning to Anacreon ... will blast the palace to the ground ... and take whatever other measures ... are
necessary ... to destroy the nest of sinners ... and the den of destroyers ... of men’s souls that now prevail.”
The voice ended with half a sob and the screen went blank.
Hardin’s fingers passed rapidly over the nucleo-bulb and its light faded until in the dimness, the hitherto regent, the king, and the soldiers were hazy-edged shadows; and for the first time it could be seen that an aura encompassed Hardin.
It was not the blazing light that was the prerogative of kings, but one less spectacular, less impressive, and yet one more effective in its own way, and more useful.
Hardin’s voice was softly ironic as he addressed the same Wienis who had one hour earlier declared him a prisoner of war and Terminus on the point of destruction, and who now was a huddled shadow, broken and silent.
“There is an old fable,” said Hardin, “as old perhaps as humanity, for the oldest records containing it are merely copies of other records still older, that might interest you. It runs as follows:
“A horse having a wolf as a powerful and dangerous enemy lived in constant fear of his life. Being driven to desperation, it occured to him to seek a strong ally. Whereupon he approached a man, and offered an alliance, pointing out that the wolf was likewise an enemy of the man. The man accepted the partnership at once and offered to kill the wolf immediately, if his new partner would only co-operate by placing his greater speed at the man’s disposal. The horse was willing, and allowed the man to place bridle and saddle upon him. The man mounted, hunted down the wolf, and killed him.
“The horse, joyful and relieved, thanked the man, and said: ‘Now that our enemy is dead, remove your bridle and saddle and restore my freedom.’
“Whereupon the man laughed loudly and replied, ‘Never!’ and applied the spurs with a will.”
Silence still. The shadow that was Wienis did not stir.
Hardin continued quietly, “You see the analogy, I hope. In their anxiety to cement forever domination over their own people, the kings of the Four Kingdoms accepted the religion of science that made them divine; and that same religion of science was their bridle and saddle, for it placed the life blood of nuclear power in the hands of the priesthoodwho took their orders from us, be it noted, and not from you. You killed the wolf, but could not get rid of the m–”
Wienis sprang to his feet and in the shadows, his eyes were maddened hollows. His voice was thick, incoherent. “And yet I’ll get you. You won’t escape. You’ll rot. Let them blow us up. Let them blow everything up. You’ll rot! I’ll get you!
“Soldiers!” he thundered, hysterically. “Shoot me down that devil. Blast him! Blast him!”
Hardin turned about in his chair to face the soldiers and smiled. One aimed his nuclear blast and then lowered it. The others never budged. Salvor Hardin, mayor of Terminus, surrounded by that soft aura, smiling so confidently, and before whom all the power of Anacreon had crumbled to powder was too much for them, despite the orders of the shrieking maniac just beyond.
Wienis shouted incoherently and staggered to the nearest soldier. Wildly, he wrested the nuclear bla
st from the man’s hand-aimed it at Hardin, who didn’t stir, shoved the lever and held it contacted.
The pale continous beam impinged upon the force-field that surrounded the mayor of Terminus and was sucked harmlessly to neutralization. Wienis pressed harder and laughed tearingly.
Hardin still smiled and his force-field aura scarcely brightened as it absorbed the energies of the nuclear blast. From his comer Lepold covered his eyes and moaned.
And, with a yell of despair, Wienis changed his aim and shot again – and toppled to the floor with his head blown into nothingness.
Hardin winced at the sight and muttered, “A man of ‘direct action’ to the end. The last refuge!”
~ * ~
9.
The Time Vault was filled; filled far beyond the available seating capacity, and men lined the back of the room, three deep.
Men Against the Stars - [Adventures in Science Fiction 01] Page 36
