“That’s very interesting. They’re bringing him back, of course.”
“Gud Baxak was indignant when I suggested it. Worlds are starving, he’s building a trading empire, and how can he get any work done if he has to reroute a spaceship because of one lousy agent of the Dark? This is what comes of not letting your left hand know what your right hand is doing. No, it’s all right. I convinced him, but I’m afraid he’ll take his own time about it.”
“Schluppy, what would I do without you?”
“Work harder, probably. You certainly wouldn’t have any time for playing soldier.”
ursGwalus escorted Darzek to a different consultation room, one that did not require him to run the gamut of Supreme’s identification system, and Darzek thanked him sincerely. As soon as he was alone he began to describe the sefs. “The situation is hopelessly out of control,” he said. “Every native on Primores has been exposed to the Dark’s propaganda. We have to assume that the planet will be lost whenever the Dark decides to move.”
Supreme’s flat voice announced, “Primores is not in danger.”
Darzek counted to ten—slowly—and went on, “I am training a small force drawn from the staffs of traders. I can’t defend Primores with it, but I think I could effectively protect Supreme’s vital areas if I knew where they were. Where should I deploy this force?”
“Supreme’s vital areas are protected.”
That gave Darzek pause, for it could easily have been true.
Then he reminded himself that Supreme’s protective devices would be useless against the Dark’s subversion. Supreme had no way of knowing when a trusted servant had gone mad.
“Supreme,” Darzek announced, “is a damned fool.”
And left.
E-Wusk, looking a bit more shriveled, a bit more faded, did not speak when Darzek entered. He unrolled a seemingly endless strip of inditing material and moved it past Darzek’s face. Gradually the wavy lines straightened out, moved closer together, and in a final, jagged swoop, merged.
“I think I understand,” Darzek said. “You’re able to project these statistics of yours, and when the lines intersect the Dark should move. When will it be?”
“Yesterday,” E-Wusk said hoarsely. “The Dark moved yesterday.”
Chapter 17
Gul Isc pointed a trembling finger. “There!” he said. His voice quavered with excitement. A door.
Darzek wondered why he hadn’t noticed it before, which was silly. He hadn’t noticed it because he hadn’t looked. He’d spent uncounted hours in the parks, but all of it had been directed at watching the natives, not at searching the transparent domes for an outmoded means of egression. “There!” Gul Isc said, pointing again. Between the park and the nearest building a strange structure slanted out of the ground, to terminate in a gaping opening.
“A ventilating system,” Darzek said in an awed whisper. “I’ve always assumed that Supreme was underground. Let’s have a look at it.”
They rippled open the door and moved across a patch of sunlight to the opening. A strong current of hot air blew steadily into their faces as they strained to see down the dark, slanting tunnel.
“This is an exit vent,” Darzek announced. “So somewhere there’ll be an air intake. There may even be several of each.”
“Several?” Gul Isc exclaimed, crestfallen. “Then even if we guarded this one, the natives could still—”
“Cheer up, my friend! You’ve done an excellent piece of work and given us the first break we’ve had. It doesn’t matter how many ways the natives can get in, if only we can get in ahead of them.”
“Ah!” Gul Isc squirmed with excitement. “Once we’re inside, we can find those other ways and block them off.”
“Right,” Darzek said, peering into the gloom of the tunnel. “This looks like a job for Rhinzl’s nocturnals. Would you pass the order for me? I want Rhinzl to bring both of his companies immediately. Tell Gul Kaln and Gul Meszk to place my entire force on alert and report to me here. As soon as Rhinzl arrives—but let’s get away from this place before someone sees us.”
They separated in the park’s shrubbery, Gul Isc to deliver the orders and Darzek to pick his way to the opposite side, where Miss Schlupe and ursDwad were gazing about them in shocked disbelief.
The park thronged with agitators. They seemed to have materialized out of the air, so suddenly had they appeared, and the ferocity of their shrieking vituperation startled even Darzek, who had thought himself inured to their ranting.
Miss Schlupe looked on helplessly, shaking her head, ursDwad was watching them as a constrained cat might eye a scurrying horde of mice.
“Are you sure you don’t want them picked up?” Miss Schlupe shouted.
“There are too many of them,” Darzek shouted back. “It would take an army.”
“So? You have an army.”
Darzek nodded. “And I have something better for it to do—I think.”
He could take some small measure of satisfaction from the fact that he had upset the Dark’s schedule. The Dark had moved, the entire center of the galaxy had fallen, and Primores and its sister planets were still resisting. They were isolated islands of light in a sea of darkness; but the Dark had craftily thrown in its reserves, and its tide was running strongly. The end might come in a matter of hours.
Darzek beckoned ursDwad away and told him to keep an unobtrusive watch on the air vent. Then he went back to wait for Rhinzl.
Night had fallen before Rhinzl’s nocturnals finally arrived. Darzek waited uncomplainingly; he could not fairly expect his makeshift army to perform with lightning reflexes, and in truth, the situation on Primores always seemed less critical under a comforting blanket of darkness. Most of the agitators subsided at sunset and went their separate ways, and the parks were quiet.
Rhinzl led Darzek down the sloping tunnel, guiding him with a hand’s gentle touch. Ranks of nocturnals followed smartly, and as Darzek felt his way forward in total darkness he could hear only the measured thump of marching feet echoing behind him.
At the bottom they came upon a heavy grating, beyond which the tunnel made a vertical plunge to infinity, or at least beyond Rhinzl’s sight. Rhinzl turned to one side, opened a door, and led Darzek through it. The dark passageway took an abrupt turn, and a long, red-lit tunnel lay before them.
“Wait!” Darzek snapped, as Rhinzl stepped forward. “I wouldn’t want to walk through there unless Supreme itself invited me.”
“Really? What would happen?”
“I don’t know. I’ve experienced it twice when I was invited, and I don’t remember either occasion with pleasure. I doubt if it would be worth the risk, because the tunnel will end at a transmitter that won’t work if Supreme doesn’t like you.”
“Strange,” Rhinzl mused. “If Supreme is so well protected, why are we to guard it?”
“There’ll be natives who have Supreme’s permission to come and go. When the mania of the Dark comes upon them they’ll still have that permission.”
“I understand. We are to prevent them from entering.”
“You’re to prevent anyone from entering, and you must take care to impress upon your troops that they aren’t to enter, either.”
“No one shall enter,” Rhinzl said confidently. “I’ll post a strong guard at the top of the tunnel, and another at the bottom.”
“You won’t need two companies for that. Your other nocturnals can start looking for more air vents. At dawn the rest of the army will take over.”
“Except in the tunnel?” Rhinzl suggested.
“Yes. You should organize shifts of nocturnals to guard the tunnel.”
“There may be many such vents.”
“I’m afraid so. I’d hoped that we could reach all of them from here, but obviously we can’t.
There are also the transmitter connections with Supreme, and Supreme alone knows how many of those there may be. This is a hopeless task, but we’re bound to do the best we can.”
“We are bound to,” Rhinzl agreed. He posted guards and led the other nocturnals into the darkness to search for air vents.
At dawn Darzek received a staggering piece of news. Gul Meszk, who had taken Darzek’s admonition to look everywhere literally, reported in from the opposite side of the planet. In Primores’s second city he had discovered another air vent. Darzek inspected it, found the same type of slanting tunnel terminating in a drop-off. Thoughtfully he posted a guard.
“I thought Supreme would be large,” he told Miss Schlupe, “but this is preposterous.”
“Supreme has a good many different functions. They may be located in different places.”
“Obviously. One under every populated area, I suppose. Or perhaps the populated area grew up wherever Supreme was located. This leaves me with the same problem I had in the beginning: How can I guard a planet?”
“There’s one slight difference. Time has run out on you. Have you seen the parks today?”
Darzek shook his head.
“This is the day. If your army fights better when it has lines of retreat, this may be your last chance to make the arrangements.”
“I’ve already asked Gud Baxak to put every available ship in orbit,” Darzek said.
With ursDwad he began a circuit of the parks.
The agitators were out in full cry and overwhelming numbers, but Darzek had eyes only for the spectators. There were few of them, and they listened with the same stoic calm he’d been observing for so many days. The only emotion they betrayed was one of quiet puzzlement. They paused, listened indifferently, strolled on.
“Look!” ursDwad exclaimed.
It was a foreigner, of a type Darzek had never seen before. Darzek watched dumbfounded as he waved spidery arms and added his chirping harangue to those of the native agitators.
“Why would they send foreigners to tell us to rise against foreigners?” ursDwad demanded.
“It’s the climax. Either that, or—” He turned to stare at URsDwad. “Come on!” he snapped.
He led him on a reckless chase through park after park, searching for foreign agitators. They found hundreds of them, the pathetic accretion of the Dark’s trek across the galaxy, all spewing their strange languages into the clamorous malestrom of hate that swirled under the park domes. Most were unfamiliar types, but Darzek saw several Yorlqers and two of the ungainly, stalklike Quarmers, who seemed to turn up in sinister fashion whenever he contested with the Dark.
Finally they returned to Darzek’s apartment. Miss Schlupe was there, talking quietly with Gul Meszk and Gul Kaln. URsGwalus hovered patiently in the background, ready to resume his haunting the moment Darzek appeared.
“It’s all over,” Darzek announced. “The Dark has lost. All of its foreign agents have been turned out in a last, desperate attempt to move the natives, and the natives aren’t having any of it. Supreme was right. Primores is not in danger. Supreme knows something that we don’t know.”
“Are you sober?” Miss Schlupe demanded.
“The Dark has only one move left,” Darzek told Gul Meszk. “It can arm its agitators and foreign agents with the best weapons available and try to take control of Primores. We’d better start picking them up, and fast. I want you to seal off the parks, three or four at a time. Send the innocent natives home, and tell them to stay there. Take portable transmitters with you, and pack all of the agitators off to the ships. Put as many as you can into each passenger compartment, and then disconnect the compartment’s transmitter. If they’re feeling violent they can take it out on each other, and we’ll sort through the pieces after they’ve quieted down.”
“Right!” Meszk said happily. He and Gul Kaln hurried away.
“Are you sober?” Miss Schlupe asked again.
“I’m enjoying the heady intoxication of a momentous discovery, even though I can’t begin to understand it. On every world where the Dark has been active, it induced madness in the natives and incited them against the foreigners. Why are the natives of Primores indifferent to it?”
ursGwalus said apologetically, “If you will pardon me—”
“What is it now?”
“If you will pardon me, I venture to point out that Primores has no natives.”
Darzek snorted. “What are they, then? Ghosts? They look substantial enough to me. ursDwad, are you a ghost?”
“No, Sire.”
“Aren’t you a native of Primores?”
ursDwad hesitated.
“Primores O has no natives,” ursGwalus said, “because Primores O is an artificial world! Why else would it bear the designation ‘O’? It was built after the other Primores worlds had been numbered.”
Darzek said blankly, “Primores O is artificial?”
“Primores O is Supreme, and Supreme is a world. Of course. No world would be large enough to contain it. It is so large that it must be a world.”
“That can’t be the whole answer,” Darzek protested. “What about the other Primores worlds? Surely one of them has a native population.”
“Primores II is the original home of those who populate this system.”
“Then why didn’t the natives of Primores II revolt? And those who live and work on Primores O must have been here long enough to consider themselves natives, artificial world or no. Why didn’t they revolt?”
ursGwalus made no answer.
“And what about the agitators?” Darzek went on. “Most of them have been Primorians.”
“Their conduct is beyond my comprehension,” URsGwalus admitted. “It is beyond the comprehension of any of us. We Primorians dedicate our lives to the service of foreigners. They call us servants of Supreme, but we are not. We are servants of the galaxy. So is Supreme a servant of the galaxy. Why should we force the foreigners to leave? We welcome them. They are the reason for our existence.”
“Yes,” Darzek said slowly. “That might account for the Dark’s failure to take Primores. It must account for it. And yet—”
“There were an awful lot of Primorian agitators,” Miss Schlupe remarked.
Darzek nodded. “Any life form could be expected to have its fair share of paranoids and idiots, though. The question is why whole populations went paranoid on other worlds, but not on Primores. Could a mere sense of loyalty and duty be stronger than the Dark’s weapon?”
Gul Meszk burst from the transmitter. “Gul Darr!” he gasped. “The efa—” He panted helplessly.
“Take your time,” Darzek told him. “What about the efa?”
“Their command has gone mad. It is attacking Supreme.”
They overtook the efa’s companies in the park near the air vent. The troops were shouting, shoving, swinging their pipe weapons wildly, fighting to be the next through the door. Brokefa circled them at a safe distance, pleading pathetically, and they laughed at him. Linhefa lay crumpled upon the grass, the victim of a swinging pipe.
Darzek drew his automatic. He fired over their heads, and so great was the din that he hardly heard the shot. He tried to force his way through them, and narrowly missed being felled himself. He could only holster his gun, and watch helplessly.
Then Gul Kaln arrived with reinforcements. Darzek formed them up, and they cleared the efa’s troops away from the door with one determined rush.
Darzek leaped through. Perhaps fifty had already reached the tunnel, and they paused there, with their leaders looking down into the darkness, while from somewhere inside Rhinzl pleaded with them. His voice reached Darzek faintly, and was buried in a sudden, crashing shout as the troops charged into the tunnel.
Darzek, following closely, stumbled over Rhinzl.
He had been knocked down and trampled. He got slowly to his feet, moaning with pain. “They wouldn’t listen to me,” he gasped. “What happened?”
“I don’t know.”
Meszk had caught up with him, with a company of loyal troops on his heels. Darzek dashed on ahead, plunging blindly into the darkness, and the limping Rhinzl kept pace with him, whimpering as he ran. From the bottom of the tunnel came the clash of battle as the nocturnal guards put up a valiant but vain resistance. They were overwhelmed before Darzek could reach them, and the efa’s troops fumbled their way past the door and into the passageway beyond, and with a shout of triumph rushed into the red-lit tunnel that led to Supreme.
A shriek of hideous pain brought Darzek up short and left him cringing. Scream followed upon scream as strange sounds echoed through the tunnel and weirdly reflected flames bathed it in flickering light and grotesque shadow. Darzek was startled to find Miss Schlupe at his side, her head bowed, her hands clapped to her ears. ursDwad cowered nearby, and Rhinzl was huddled in a convulsive, unrecognizable mass. Darzek looked again, saw Rhinzl heave himself into a familiar shape, saw Meszk looking strangely pale in the red reflection, saw the looming shadows that came and went on the wall behind them.
The sounds died away, but the flickering light lingered. Darzek drew his automatic and announced to no one in particular, “It’s the only way.”
And shot Rhinzl.
He pulled the trigger again and again, oblivious to Miss Schlupe’s scream and Meszk’s baffled cry, until Rhinzl’s body collapsed shapelessly in a sticky splash and slowly spread long filaments of ooze over the tunnel floor.
Then the light died away, and they were in darkness.
Chapter 18
[Jan Darzek 02] - Watchers of the Dark Page 21
