Brock looked at him. “Ask.”
“Was the suprin alone in his last moments?”
Ah…the question that encompassed so many, including the matter of rightful succession, the secrets of state, the honor due a dying suprin, and religious proprieties.
Do I dare reach again for the throne? Brock asked himself. The upper bridge was overheated, meeting the Chaimu level of temperature comfort but not his own. Their eyes bored into him as they waited for his answer. The scent of scale oil used by so many honorables as protection against the drying effects of recycled air cloyed his nostrils. For a moment he felt crushed and small and tired. Perhaps he had left the safety of the infirmary too soon. But hiding from responsibility did not take it away.
He could feel the smooth warmth of the goda band encircling his wrist beneath the tight sleeve of his corselet, and as though they had been spoken only a moment ago, he could hear again in his mind the last words of Utdi. The little band of rebels hiding in the tunnels beneath Impryn had chosen not to honor the suprin’s choice. Would these men of power and rank likewise refuse? And if, by chance, they did turn aside from tradition and accept him, was he ready? Could a crippled Sedkethran truly be a suprin? Was he truly the one the Writings warned of, the one the magstrusi feared? As though conjured up by the thought of his old teachers, something foreign intruded upon his mental shields, nudging them.
“Dire-lord?” prompted Rumarc cautiously. “Was the suprin alone in his last moments?”
“He was not alone,” said Brock.
“Ah.” The esmir lumbered stiffly to his feet and bared his teeth. “Did the nairin join him?”
“No. I alone remained with Utdi. I gave him the Rites of Eternity.”
There was a stir among the twelve and several explosive, if low, Chaimu oaths. The esmir’s red eyes narrowed upon Brock.
“Is that all?”
For answer, Brock pulled off his gauntlet and lifted his left arm. The corybdium metal of the goda band flashed dark green upon his wrist. Even Eondal flinched.
“I wear it,” said Brock, his eyes stabbing to each man as they stared wide-eyed and mesmerized at him. “By Utdi’s order. I was chosen by Utdi to succeed to the Superior Life, and with his own mouth did he condemn the treachery of his son.”
Silence gripped the upper bridge, then Eondal croaked in a whisper, “The ceremonial dagger?”
“Taken from me by Tregher just before he gave me to the Colonids for interrogation.”
“Then it is lost.”
“I fear so.”
Did they believe him? Brock wondered. They seemed stunned, their expressions heavy and guarded as their eyes shifted to each other. Again he felt that mental nudge as though something strove to tap his mind, and in sudden anger he whirled and limped furiously to the communications console. Without asking permission, he punched open a line to the lower bridge.
“Dire-lord speaking,” he said curtly. “Our current position?”
“Course heading steady, proceeding standard by one toward target, present bearing twelve mark seven.”
“Distance from the Praxos System?”
There was a slight pause as his question was relayed to the appropriate officer and back again. “Two point four parsecs.”
“Thank you. Dire-lord out.”
Brock turned away from the console, his thoughts whirling. Close enough! More than close enough. They knew. The magstrusi had already detected his presence as well as his purpose. They were already trying to keep him away.
Have you forgotten? he wondered angrily. I am stronger now than when I left all those years ago. You will not stop me in this way.
“Dire-lord?” asked the esmir. “Is something wrong?”
Brock shook away his thoughts and turned back to the matter at hand. “Do you believe me?” he asked.
They seemed shocked by so direct a question, and even Eondal blinked.
“It is,” he said slowly, “without precedent. A dire-lord is under oath to serve the will of the suprin until death.”
“And sometimes after,” said Brock grimly. “Come, Honorables! I am not trying to claim the throne. At the moment there is not one—”
“As long as we stand, the Held stands!” shouted Cunsk furiously. “We seek your leadership for this fight, Dire-lord, nothing more.”
Brock drew a deep breath and pulled his gauntlet back on. “My fight is elsewhere.”
“Explain!”
“You would serve me as a dire-lord, but as nothing further,” said Brock with a wry smile. “Interesting.”
“No one serves a dire-lord!” snapped Rumarc with a snort. “You—”
“Quibbling!" roared the esmir loudly enough to rattle the ceiling panels. “Would you spend the rest of the day arguing over rank order in the manner of protocol archivists? Cuh! Think, Honorables! Use the brains Meir gave you. The dire-lord has not joined us to follow our orders. He still serves Suprin Utdi. He has just said so. Are you deaf?”
“Is it serving Utdi to proclaim himself the new suprin?” challenged the Varlax.
“And who would you have instead, Igrit?” retorted Eondal with a sneer. “Tregher the black nairin? That liviling bfrat who cost us three-quarters of our fleet by selling our battle plans to the Colonids? You, Cunsk—” a clawed finger jabbed at the chief of Intel—“have proof of it.”
“None of us intend to bend knee to Tregher,” said Cunsk.
“What then?” roared Eondal. “Mabruk was destroyed. We breathed the ashes of our children. There is no more of my line, or of yours, Rumarc, or of yours, Cunsk, or of any of yours! Our genetic banks are gone forever! When we die, there are no more of us. And what becomes of the Held without the Chaimu?”
“Nothing. It is finished,” said Igrit, blinking flat yellow eyes and tugging at the string which held his mustache coiled.
“You live in the past. As a Varlax, you should know better.” Eondal flicked a hand across his nose ridges in exasperation. “We ceased being the Chaimu Empire centuries ago. We are Held now. If we are to survive these accursed humans, we must shake off the stranglehold of mindless tradition. Did Utdi not make his choice? Did it not show wisdom?”
“Or desperation,” muttered Cunsk, causing Brock to look at him sharply.
“And what does it matter?”
“It matters a great deal!” said Rumarc. His eyes flicked to Brock and then back to Eondal. “Your flaw has always been impatience. You don’t trouble to think out the consequences, Esmir. If Brock becomes suprin, he founds a new dynasty. Great Meir! He is Sedkethran—”
“Cuh! That old argument. The dire-lord has proved himself a warrior many times over. He has fought with the best of us. He—”
“I understand what you are saying, Rumarc,” said Brock, taking the argument away from Eondal. “I am an exception to my race. And you fear a dynasty of nonviolent suprins.”
“Precisely.”
The esmir’s face seemed to collapse. He heaved a gusty sigh and turned away, his massive head drooping. “I am too old to live another generation,” he said hoarsely. “What is to become of us without leaders?”
“I suggest that unless we deal with the direct problem at hand, the question of future leadership will not matter,” said Brock, regaining their attention. “The suprin did not give me the goda band out of tradition. He gave it to me to be used.”
“Luth muk shal!” The esmir’s oath rose above the others’. “What are you saying? It is not to be done! Even in our darkest hour we have not considered actually using the godas.”
“Then it is time you did,” said Brock grimly, aware that he could hold the truth back no longer. “Colonel Falmah-Al of the Imish forces has Goda Secondary.”
“What?”
“No!”
“Impossible!”
“Even now, her technicians are working to learn how to activate it.” Brock’s gaze swept their incredulous faces. “You have all seen examples of Imish technology. It will not take them long. When y
our wedge captured me, Esmir, I was on my way to Felca, to activate Goda Prime.”
A great hush fell over the upper bridge. They stood there huddled, afraid to look at each other, afraid to look at Brock.
Then Rumarc shook himself with a grunt. “You are mad,” he said flatly. “Completely, hopelessly insane. You disappear for weeks when the suprin dies, then you suddenly arrive among us in a Colonid vessel, claiming the throne for yourself and announcing that you are going to destroy your own world. I say you are mad. Totally mad. Or you are spying for the Colonids. Why else appear now, when we are on our way to attack them?”
There were sharp murmurs at this.
“Don’t be an old fool!” shouted Brock furiously. His gaze swept all of them and he wondered, why do I bother to help them? Why do I keep trying? I have given up my ability to slip through time. I have given up my home world. I have lost a friend. Why not leave them here in their fruitless plan of attack and take myself and Ellisne to a safe, abandoned corner of the galaxy?
The pressure on his mental shields suddenly returned, harder, like a punch to his mind. He swayed slightly, but did nothing beyond conserve his energy to maintain his shields.
I want it all. I want the Held in my hand.
The intensity of that desire burned through him like a banked fire suddenly uncovered. His memories flashed back to that day in the arena, when he had stood blood-splattered and breathless, knowing triumphantly that the suprin could choose no other but him as dire-lord. Even then the flame of ambition had been alive. He had stood there, panting lightly with the blood-smeared dagger slippery in his hand, and watched the suprin leave his throne to make the announcement. It was his first sight of Suprin Utdi, but even now Brock could not recall details of face or attire. When he looked at Utdi that first time, he saw only the living symbol of the Held itself. And he had burned to be in Utdi’s place. Loving Utdi as a father, protecting Utdi, serving Utdi, had in many ways been only a form of cherishing the Held. Utdi, Meir keep him, had known this, and it was why Brock now wore the goda band.
The magstrusi of Felca had seen his ambition from the moment of Change, when he had left the crystal Hall of Harmonies and walked out into the frosty air to enter his assigned barracks and a new way of life. The magstrusi had feared his abilities, his ambitions, and his resistance to control. And what they could not control, they shattered.
Not me. Not this one.
“Did the dire-lord hear my question?” asked Cunsk coldly.
Brock turned to face him, lifting his brows. “No.”
“I asked you how Falmah-Al came into possession of Goda Secondary.”
If I take the throne, I must fight for it, Brock thought. They will never simply give it to me.
“Dire-lord?”
“He is thinking up lies!” said Rumarc angrily.
Eondal stiffened, watching Brock closely. “Careful, Rumarc!”
“Why are you so frightened of the truth?” asked Brock quietly. He had no intention of attacking the old honorable. “If I tell you that I led Falmah-Al to the control room of Goda Secondary, would you be at ease?”
“There! He admits his guilt!” Rumarc shook a finger. “He has gone over to the other side!”
“Be silent,” snapped Cunsk. His eyes, hooded beneath thick brow bones, watched Brock intently. Brock knew he was concentrating on voice patterns and respiratory release, trying to gauge the truth in the manner of a good interrogator. “He said he led her there—”
“Precisely!”
“It is a statement of action. He does not explain motivation—”
“Greed, of course. They have—”
Brock threw back in his head with a harsh laugh. “What could the Colonids offer a dire-lord except a knife in the spine?”
“Cuh,” said Eondal in approval, standing back from the feint and ripost of words as though he were watching a game in the arena.
Brock’s eyes swung to Cunsk, whose judgment, he knew, would be ultimately what Eondal sought. It was to Cunsk alone now that he spoke:
“I led her there because she followed me, staying out of detection range. And when she captured our ship, my pilot Rho told her the location of the goda.”
“Your man. Your responsibility,” muttered Rumarc darkly.
Brock ignored him. “I showed her how to find the control room because she convinced me she wanted only to deactivate the godas permanently. The Colonids are as frightened of them as we are.”
“But she dealt falsely.”
“Yes.” Anger came through Brock’s voice as he saw again the agony frozen on Rho’s narrow face as the Slathese crumpled to the floor. “The controls are dead. Time has been too much for them. But her technicians are working now to reactivate the weapon. They may have already succeeded. They are clever.”
“A cluster ship against a goda,” said Eondal slowly. The words seemed to hang in the air. “No chance whatsoever.”
“That’s why I must go to Felca without delay,” said Brock. “Only a goda can fight a goda. It’s the only way to stop her.”
“No!” shouted Rumarc. “It is a trick! He will surrender Goda Prime to them also, and then they will have two godas!”
“Even if they have one, we are lost,” said Cunsk impatiently, turning on him. “Be silent.”
Rumarc reached for his knife. “I will not be ordered about like some mere lackey, spymaster! State your hour—”
“There will be no duelling!” roared the esmir, raising his fists. “We are officers under action. Keep your place, Rumarc, or face court-martial by the Fets.”
Abashed silence fell over the upper bridge, and Rumarc’s hand fell away from his weapon. Satisfied, Eondal glanced at Brock. “You must go to Felca.”
“Yes, Esmir.”
“If you activate the goda and move it, all atmosphere will be ripped away. The population will die.” Eondal cocked his head. “As a Sedkethran, how will you face the responsibilities for those deaths?”
Brock had been waiting for this question. Drawing a deep breath, he said: “They need not die.”
“Explain.”
“Felca is not the source planet of my race. It is not a planet at all. It is a constructed goda, strategically placed near the center of the empire for maximum defense and then populated. Think about the peculiar abilities of Sedkethrans. Their strengths as empathic healers. Flicking between time. Sedkethrans were designed by the ancient Chaimu engineers just as godas were designed.”
“What?”
“Be silent!”
“We are, so to speak, the mop-up crew for a goda battle. Who better than a race of healers able to avoid injury simply by stepping out of the dimension?”
Brock waited, watching them digest the idea. Eondal began nodding his massive head.
“The old legends. I remember. I remember bits. The old songs about Sedkethran warriors from a distant star. How loudly we sang those as youths, laughing all the while. We thought they were jokes, parodies. Sedkethrans are so stuffy, so formal, so damned peaceable! But behind each legend hangs a strand of truth, eh, Dire-lord?”
“Tell us more!” commanded one of the other officers.
Brock withdrew behind a mask of formality. “Legends are for leisure. I do not have it, honorables. I must go to Felca.” He did not want to admit that he knew little more than what he had told them. He had gleaned a few things from stolen glimpses at the Forbidden Writings; the rest was speculation.
A babble of discussion broke out, quelled at once by the esmir.
“But what about the Sedkethrans?” he asked Brock. “Do they know this?”
“Most of them? No.”
“Then, will they believe you?”
“There is safety inside the goda. But it is the magstrusi whom I must convince.” Whom I must fight and defeat, thought Brock grimly. Before I defeat Falmah-Al.
“When do you go?”
“Now. I request a ship.”
“It is yours,” said the esmir.
Brock shifted the helmet under his elbow. His head was high. His heart was thumping faster beneath his atrox at the thought of returning to Felca at last. I saw these things long ago during those cold nights upon the glacier when I searched the stars across the sky. I saw them and they troubled me, but I did not understand them then. Beware, my old teachers.
“There is something else?”
Brock nodded. “The healer Ellisne. Guard her safety in your keeping. Do not let her follow me.”
“As you wish. Fare well, Dire-lord, in your battle,” said Eondal, giving him a salute.
Brock returned it crisply. “Fare well in yours.” Wheeling about, he strode from the upper bridge, his escort in formation as before, as befitting his rank. Ten minutes later, he stood on the narrow command deck of a wedge, watching from the viewscreen as it broke from the cluster ship and sliced away in a long arc to avoid the rest of the flotilla, aiming at maximum speed for Felca.
On the upper bridge of the cluster ship, the esmir also watched a viewscreen. Cunsk stood at his side.
“You realize, Esmir,” he said softly, “that when Brock controls a goda he will control the Held?”
The esmir bared his teeth. “If Meir favors us, Brock will control the entire galaxy.”
“He will never dare use the weapon. Surely he will only bluff with it.”
Eondal rolled an eye sideways to look at him. “Worried, Cunsk?”
“Aren’t you?”
“Should I be?” Eondal left the question as bait, wondering just how much Cunsk knew.
“I have seen the old operations manuals. And—I have clearance, Esmir!”
“Yes,” said Eondal mildly. “But if you intend to explain precisely to me what will happen if the godas attack each other, I do not want to hear.”
“It will be the end!” Cunsk’s voice rose, and he hastily coughed. “Of everything! There will start a chain reaction of negative energy which—”
“I have said I do not want to hear it,” said the esmir more sharply. “If a leader is ignorant of all the ramifications, he cannot be afraid. I will not go into my last battle afraid, Cunsk.”
The Goda War Page 21
