by Issac Asimov
Jonti sighed and said, “Farrill, it is cold, and getting colder. I believe the sun is heading downward. You are unutterably foolish and you weary me. Before we end this farrago of nonsense, will you tell me why I should be in the least interested in killing you anyway? That is, if your obvious paranoia needs any reason.”
“There is the same reason that caused you to kill my father.”
“What?”
“Did you think I believed you for an instant when you said Hinrik had been the traitor? He might have been, were it not for the fact that his reputation as a wretched weakling is so well established. Do you suppose that my father was a complete fool? Could he possibly have mistaken Hinrik for anything but what he was? If he had not known his reputation, would not five minutes in his presence have revealed him completely as a hopeless puppet? Would my father have blabbed foolishly to Hinrik anything that might have been used to support a charge of treason against him? No, Jonti. The man who betrayed my father must have been one who was trusted by him.”
Jonti took a step backward and kicked the suitcase aside. He poised himself to withstand a charge and said, “I see your vile implication. My only explanation for it is that you are criminally insane.”
Biron was trembling, and not with cold. “My father was popular with your men, Jonti. Too popular. An Autarch cannot allow a competitor in the business of ruling. You saw to it that he did not remain a competitor. And it was your next job to see to it that I did not remain alive either to replace or to avenge him.” His voice raised to a shout, which whipped away on the cold air. “Isn’t this true?”
“No.”
Jonti bent to the suitcase. “I can prove you are wrong!”
He flung it open. “Radio equipment. Inspect it. Take a good look at it.” He tossed the items to the ground at Biron’s feet.
Biron stared at them. “How does that prove anything?” Jonti rose. “It doesn’t. But now take a good look at this.” He had a blaster in his hand, and his knuckles were white with tension. The coolness had left his voice. He said, “I am tired of you. But I won’t have to be tired much longer.” Biron said tonelessly, “You hid a blaster in the suitcase with the equipment?”
“Did you think I wouldn’t? You honestly came here expecting to be thrown off a cliff and you thought I would try to do it with my hands as though I were a stevedore or a coal miner? I am Autarch of Lingane”—his face worked and his left hand made a flat, cutting gesture before him—“and I am tired of the cant and fatuous idealism of the Ranchers of Widemos.” He whispered then, “Move on. Toward the cliff.” He stepped forward.
Biron, hands raised, eyes on the blaster, stepped back. “You killed my father, then.”
“I killed your father!” said the Autarch. “I tell you this so you may know in the last few moments of your life that the same man who saw to it that your father was blasted to bits in a disintegration chamber will see to it that you will follow him—and keep the Hinriad girl for himself thereafter, along with all that goes with her. Think of that! I will give you an extra minute to think of that! But keep your hands steady, or I will blast you and risk any questions my men may care to ask.” It was as though his cold veneer, having cracked, left nothing but a burning passion exposed.
“You tried to kill me before this, as I said.”
“I did. Your guesses were in every way correct. Does that help you now? Back!”
“No,” said Biron. He brought his hands down and said, “If you’re going to shoot, do so.”
The Autarch said, “You think I will not dare?”
“I’ve asked you to shoot.”
“And I will.” The Autarch aimed deliberately at Biron’s head and at a distance of four feet closed contact on his blaster.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Tedor Rizzett circled the little piece of tableland warily. He was not yet ready to be seen, but to remain hidden was difficult in this world of bare rock. In the patch of tumbled, crystalline boulders he felt safer. He threaded his way through them. Occasionally he paused to pass the soft back of the spongy gloves he wore over his face. The dry cold was deceptive.
He saw them now from between two granite monoliths that met in a V. He rested his blaster in the crotch. The sun was on his back. He felt its feeble warmth soak through, and he was satisfied. If they happened to look in his direction, the sun would be in their eyes and he himself would be that much less visible.
Their voices were sharp in his ear. Radio communication was in operation and he smiled at that. So far, according to plan. His own presence, of course, was not according to plan, but it would be better so. The plan was a rather overconfident one and the victim was not a complete fool, after all. His own blaster might yet be needed to decide the issue.
He waited. Stolidly he watched the Autarch lift his blaster as Biron stood there, unflinching.
Artemisia did not see the blaster lift. She did not see the two figures on the flat rock surface. Five minutes earlier she had seen Rizzett silhouetted for a moment against the sky, and since then she had followed him.
Somehow, he was moving too fast for her. Things dimmed and wavered before her ana twice she found herself stretched on the ground. She did not recall falling. The second time, she staggered to her feet with one wrist oozing blood where a sharp edge had scraped her.
Rizzett had gained again and she had to reel after him. When he vanished in the glistening boulder forest, she sobbed in despair. She leaned against a rock, completely weary. Its beautiful flesh-pink tint, the glassy smoothness of its surface, the fact that it stood as an ancient reminder of a primeval volcanic age was lost upon her.
She could only try to fight the sensation of choking that pervaded her.
And then she saw him, dwarfed at the forked-rock formation, his back to her. She held the neuronic whip before her as she ran unevenly over the hard ground. He was sighting along the barrel of his rifle, intent upon the process, taking aim. getting ready.
She wouldn’t mak it in time.
She would have to distract his attention. She called, “Rizzett!” And again, “Rizzett, don’t shoot!”
She stumbled again. The sun was blotting out, but consciousness lingered. It lingered long enough for her to feel the ground jar thuddingly against her; long enough to press her finger upon the whip’s contact; and long enough for her to know that she was well out of range, even if her aim was accurate, which it could not be.
She felt arms about her, lifting. She tried to see, but her eyelids would not open.
“Biron?” It was a weak whisper.
The answer was a rough blur of words, but it was Rizzett’s voice. She tried to speak further, then abruptly gave up. She had failed!
Everything was blotted out.
The Autarch remained motionless for the space it would take a man to count to ten slowly. Biron faced him as motionlessly, watching the barrel of the blaster that had just been fired point-blank at him. The barrel sank slowly as he watched.
Biron said, “Your blaster seems not to be in firing order.
Examine it.”
The Autarch’s bloodless face turned alternately from Biron to his weapon. He had fired at a distance of four feet. It should have been all over. The congealed astonishment that held him broke suddenly and he disjointed the blaster in a quick movement.
The energy capsule was missing. Where it should have been, there was a useless cavity. The Autarch whimpered with rage as he hurled the lump of dead metal aside. It turned over and over, a black blot against the sun, smashing into the rock with a faint ringing sound.
“Man to man!” said Biron. There was a trembling eagerness in his voice.
The Autarch took a step backward. He said nothing.
Biron took a slow step forward. “There are many ways I could kill you, but not all would be satisfying. If I blasted you, it would mean that a millionth of a second would separate your life from your death. You would have no consciousness of dying. That would be bad. I think that instead t
here would be considerable satisfaction in using the somewhat slower method of human muscular effort.”
His thigh muscles tensed, but the lunge they prepared was never completed. The cry that interrupted was thin and high, packed with panic.
“Rizzett!” it came. “Rizzett, don’t shoot!”
Biron whirled in time to see the motion behind the rocks a hundred yards away and the glint of sun on metal. And then the hurled weight of a human body was upon his back. He bent under it, dropping to his knees.
The Autarch had landed fairly, his knees clasped hard about the other’s waist, his fist thudding at the nape of Biron’s neck. Biron’s breath whooshed out in a whistling grunt.
Biron fought off the gathering blackness long enough to throw himself to one side. The Autarch jumped free, gaining clear footing while Biron sprawled on his back.
He had just time to double his legs up against himself as the Autarch lunged down upon him again. The Autarch bounced off. They were up together this time, perspiration turning icy upon their cheeks.
They circled slowly. Biron tossed his carbon-dioxide cylinder to one side. The Autarch likewise unstrapped his, held it suspended a moment by its mesh-metal hose, then stepped in rapidly and swung it. Biron dropped, and both heard and felt it whistle above his head.
He was up again, leaping on the other before the Autarch could regain his balance. One large fist clamped down on the other’s wrist, while the other fist exploded in the Autarch’s face. He let the Autarch drop and stepped back.
Biron said, “Stand up. I’ll wait for you with more of the same. There’s no hurry.”
The Autarch touched his gloved hand to his face, then stared sickly at the blood that smeared off upon it. His mouth twisted and his hand snaked out for the metal cylinder he had dropped. Biron’s foot came heavily down upon it, and the Autarch yelled in agony.
Biron said, “You’re too close to the edge of the cliff, Jonti. Mustn’t reach in that direction. Stand up. I’ll throw you the other way now.”
But Rizzett’s voice rang out: “Wait!”
The Autarch screamed, “Shoot this man, Rizzett! Shoot him now! His arms first, then his legs, and we’ll leave him.”
Rizzett brought his weapon up slowly against his shoulder.
Biron said, “Who saw to it that your own blaster was unloaded, Jonti?”
“What?” The Autarch stared blankly.
“It was not I who had access to your blaster, Jonti. Who did have? Who is pointing a blaster at you right now, Jonti? Not at me, Jonti, but at you!”
The Autarch turned to Rizzett and screamed, “Traitor!”
Rizzett said, in a low voice, “Not I, sir. That man is the traitor who betrayed the loyal Rancher of Widemos to his death.”
“That is not I,” cried the Autarch. “If he has told you I have, he lies.”
“It is you yourself who have told us. I not only emptied your weapon, I also shorted your communicator switch, so that every word you said today was received by myself and by every member of the crew. We all know you for what you are.”
“I am your Autarch.”
“And also the greatest traitor alive.”
For a moment the Autarch said nothing, but looked wildly from one to the other as they watched him with somber, angry faces. Then he wrenched to his feet, pulled together the parted seams of his self-control, and held them tightly by sheer nervous force.
His voice was almost cool as he said, “And if it were all true, what would it matter? You have no choice but to let matters stand as they are. One last intranebular planet remains to be visited. It must be the rebellion world, and only I know the coordinates.”
He retained dignity somehow. One hand hung uselessly from a broken wrist; his upper lip had swollen ludicrously, and blood was caking his cheek, but he radiated the hauteur of one born to rule.
“You’ll tell us,” said Biron.
“Don’t delude yourself that I will under any circumstances. I have told you already that there is an average of seventy cubic light-years per star. If you work by trial and error, without me, the odds are two hundred and fifty quadrillion to one against your coming within a billion miles of any star. Any star!”
Something went click! in Biron’s mind.
He said, “Take him back to the Remorseless!”
Rizzett said in a low voice, “The Lady Artemisia—”
And Biron interrupted, “Then it was she? Where is she?”
“It’s all right. She’s safe. She came out without a carbon-dioxide cylinder. Naturally, as the carbon dioxide washed out of her blood stream, the automatic breathing mechanism of the body slowed. She was trying to run, didn’t have the sense to breathe deeply voluntarily, and fainted.”
Biron frowned. “Why was she trying to interfere with you, anyway? Making sure her boy friend didn’t get hurt?”
Rizzett said, “Yes, she was! Only she thought I was the Autarch’s man and was going to shoot you. I’ll take back this rat now, and, Biron—”
“Yes?”
“Get back as soon as you can. He’s still the Autarch, and the crew may need talking to. It’s hard to break a lifetime habit of obedience…She’s behind that rock. Get to her before she freezes to death, will you? She won’t leave.”
Her face was almost buried in the hood that covered her head, and her body was formless in the thick, enveloping folds of the spacesuit lining, but his steps quickened as he approached her.
He said, “How are you?”
She said, “Better, thank you. I am sorry if I caused any trouble.”
They stood looking at each other, and the conversation seemed to have burned itself out in two lines.
Then Biron said, “I know we can’t turn time backward, undo things that have been done, unsay things that have been said. But I do want you to understand.”
“Why this stress on understanding?” Her eyes flashed. “I have done nothing but understand for weeks now. Will you tell me again about my father?”
“No. I knew your father was innocent. I suspected the Autarch almost from the start, but I had to find out definitely. I could only prove it, Arta, by forcing him to confess, I thought I could get him to confess by trapping him into attempting to kill me, and there was only one way of doing that.”
He felt wretched. He went on, “It was a bad thing to do. As bad, almost, as what he did to my father. I don’t expect you to forgive me.’
She said, “I don’t follow you.”
He said, “I knew he wanted you, Arta, Politically, you would be a perfect matrimonial object. The name of Hinriad would be more useful for his purposes than that of Wide-mos. So once he had you, he would need me no longer. I deliberately forced you on him, Arta. I acted as I did, hoping you would turn to him. When you did, he thought he was ready to rid himself of me, and Rizzett and I laid our trap.”
“And you loved me all the ime?”
Biron said, “Can’t you bring yourself to believe that, Arta?”
“And of course you were ready to sacrifice your love to the memory of your father and the honor of your family. How does the old doggerel go? You could not love me half so much, loved you not honor more!”
Biron said, miserably, “Please, Arta! I am not proud of myself but I could think of no other way.”
“You might have told me your plan, made me your confederate rather than your tool.”
“It was not your fight. If I had failed—and I might have—you would have remained out of it. If the Autarch had killed me and you were no longer on my side, you would be less hurt. You might even have married him, even been happy.”
“Since you have won, it might be that I would be hurt at his loss.”
“But you aren’t.”
“How do you know?”
Biron said desperately, “At least try to see my motives. Granted that I was foolish—criminally foolish—can’t you understand? Can’t you try not to hate me?”
She said softly, “I have tried not to love yo
u and, as you see, I have failed.”
“Then you forgive me.”
“Why? Because I understand? Nol If it were a matter of simply understanding, of seeing your motives, I would not forgive you your actions for anything I might have in life. If it were only that and nothing morel But I will forgive you, Biron, because I couldn’t bear not to. How could I ask you to come back to me unless I forgave you?”
And she was in his arms, her weather-cold lips turning up to his. They were held apart by by a double layer of thick garments. His gloved hands could not feel the body they embraced, but his lips were aware of her white, smooth face.
At last he said in concern, “The sun is getting lower. It’s going to get colder.”
But she said softly, “It’s strange, th en, that I seem to be getting warmer.”
Together they walked back to the ship.
Biron faced them now with an appearance of easy confidence which he did not feel. The Linganian ship was large, and there were fifty in the crew. They sat now facing him. Fifty faces I Fifty Linganian faces bred from birth to unquestioning obedience to their Autarch.
Some had been convinced by Rizzett; others had been convinced by the arranged eavesdropping on the Autarch’s statements to Biron earner that day. But how many others were still uncertain or even definitely hostile?
I right?’
So far Biron’s talking had done little good. He leaned forward, let his voice grow confidential. “And what are you fighting for, men? What are you risking your fives for A free Galaxy, I think. A Galaxy in which each world can decide what is best in its own way, produce its own wealth for its own good, be slave to none and master of none. Am
There was a low murmur of what might have been agreement, but it lacked enthusiasm.
Biron went on, “And what is the Autarch fighting for? For himself. He is the Autarch of Lingane. If he won, he would be Autarch of the Nebular Kingdoms. You would replace a Khan by an Autarch. Where would be the benefit of that? Is that worth dying for?”
