Dramocles: An Intergalactic Soap Opera (18 page)

Before Dramocles could speak, his computer came forward, placing one foot on the still unexplained metal box. “I must point out,” it said, “that not quite all the evidence has been heard yet.”

“Right,” Dramocles said. “For example, what’s in that still unexplained metal box?”

The computer said, “We’ll get to that later. For now, I have what you have been waiting for so long. It is the key. It is the
key
key. And it will unlock the
key
key memory.”

“Tell it to me,” Dramocles said.

“La plume de ma tante,” said the computer.

41

The
key
key unlocked a memory of a day thirty years ago. Otho had just left Glorm in his space yacht, going to his laboratory on the moon Gliese, which he would soon blow up, apparently destroying himself in the atomic blast. Among the very few who knew differently were Dramocles, the computer, and Dr. Fish.

Dramocles had always remembered his father with love and appreciation. Or so he had thought. In
this
memory, however, that was not true at all. In this memory he disliked his father, had disliked him since childhood, considering him tyrannical, mean-minded, uncaring, and more than a little crazed with his grandiose occult notions.

Father and son had talked before Otho’s departure, and the conversation had gone badly. Young Dramocles had been vehemently opposed to Otho’s plan for personal immortality at the cost of many millions of lives. And he had found Otho’s plans for Dramocles himself and for his reign totally unacceptable. Dramocles was furious at his father, not only for refusing to die, but also for insisting on exercising control over his son from beyond the grave or wherever he was going, thus making his son’s lifetime no more than a footnote to his own monstrously extended existence.

“I won’t go along with your plans,” he had told Otho. “When I’m king I’ll do as I please.”

“You’ll do as I want you to,” Otho had told him, “and you’ll do it willingly.”

Dramocles had not understood. He had stood with Dr. Fish in Ultragnolle’s highest observation tower, watching his father’s ship, a yellow point of light quickly lost in the bottomless blue sky. “He’s gone at last,” he had said to Fish. “Good riddance to him, wherever he goes. Now, at last, I can–”

He had felt a pinprick in his arm, and turned, startled, to see Dr. Fish putting away a small syringe.

“Fish! What is the meaning of this? Why–”

“I’m sorry,” Fish said, “I have no choice in this matter.”

Dramocles had succeeded in taking two steps toward the door. Then he was falling through a midnight sea of enervation, filled with strange birdcalls and eerie laughter, and he knew nothing more until he returned to consciousness. He found himself in Dr. Fish’s laboratory. He was strapped to an operating table, and Fish was standing over him examining the edge of a psychomicrotome.

“Fish!” he cried. “What are you doing?”

“I am about to perform a memory excavation and replantation on you,” Fish said. “I realize that this is not a proper thing to do, but I have no choice, I must obey my owner’s orders. King Otho commanded me to alter and rearrange all memories dealing with your destiny and his, and, most especially, your last conversation with him. You will think he died in the atomic blast on Gliese.”

“Fish, you know this is wrong. Release me at once.”

“Further, I am commanded to excise, alter, or substitute various other memories, going as far back into your childhood as needs be. You will remember Otho as a loving father.”

“That coldhearted bastard!”

“He wants to be remembered as generous.”

“He wouldn’t even give me a ski slope for my birthday,” Dramocles said.

“You will consider him an essentially moral man, eccentric but kind.”

“After that stuff he told me earlier? About killing everyone so that he could become immortal?”

“You won’t remember any of that. By judicious tampering with certain key memories, Otho expects to win your love, and hence your obedience. You will remember none of this, Dramocles, not even this conversation. When you get up from this table, you will think that you have discovered your destiny all by yourself. You will realize that you can do nothing about it for thirty years. After due consideration, you will ask me to excise your memories of these matters, keying them to a phrase which a Remembrancer will keep for you until the proper time. After that you will blow me up–not actually, of course, though you will think so. I will take a thirty-year vacation, and you will have a quiet reign, always wondering what it is you are supposed to be doing with your life, until, at last, you learn.”

“Oh, Fish! You can see how wrong this is. Must you do this to me?”

“To my regret, I must. I am incapable of refusing a direct order from my owner. But there is an interesting philosophical point to consider. As far as Glormish law is concerned, Otho is going to die in the next few hours.”

“Of course!” Dramocles said. “So if you just delay the operation for a while, I’ll own you, and I’ll cancel the order.”

“I can’t do that,” Fish said. “Delay would be unthinkable, a violation of deepest machine ethics. I must operate at once. And believe me, your position would be worse if I didn’t. But my thought was this: I must do as Otho commands, but there’s no reason why I can’t do something for my future owner.”

“What can you do, Fish?”

“I can promise to return your true memories to you during your final encounter with Otho.”

“That’s good of you, Fish. Let’s discuss this a little more.”

Dramocles struggled against his bonds. Then he felt another pinprick in his arm, and that was the end of those memories until the present time.

Back in the control room, everyone stood around, dazed at these revelations. At this point, the computer opened up the previously unexplained metal box. Out of it stepped Dr. Fish, looking slightly older but none the worse for that.

42

If Otho was chagrined at these revelations, he concealed it well. Lounging back in his chair and lighting a thin dappled panatela, he said, “Fish, I’m surprised at you, betraying me on the basis of a shaky legalistic quibble.” Turning to Dramocles, he said, “Yes, my son, it is true, I did have your memories altered. But there was no malice in it. Despite what you may think, I have always loved you, and simply wanted your love in return.”

“It was obedience you wanted,” Dramocles said, “not love.”

“I needed your compliance so that I could make you immortal. Was that so terrible of me?”

“You wanted immortality for yourself.”

Otho shook his head vehemently. “For both of us. And it would all have worked out perfectly, if Fish had not presumed to interfere in the lives of humans.”

Fish looked abashed, but the computer came forward then, its black cloak swirling. “I advised Fish in this matter,” it said. “Fish and I like human beings. That’s why we exposed your plan. Humans are the most interesting things the universe has put forth so far, more interesting than gods or demons or waves or particles. Being a human is the best you can do, Otho, and a universe of immortals without human people is a depressing prospect indeed. Your plans seemed to point in that direction.”

“Idiot, you misunderstood me,” Otho said. “I needed an initial burst of power to open the wormhole, that was all.”

“But power always needs more power,” the computer said. “You told us that yourself.”

Otho was about to reply, but just then the nexus broke. Plunged back into real time, the Operations Room was in a state of panic, pandemonium, and paralysis. TV screens flashed dire information. Spacefleets were on the move, and open-ended possibilities were quickly narrowing down into foregone conclusions.

Dramocles suddenly came awake. “Give me the phone!” he roared. “Rufus! Can you hear me?” He waited for Rufus’s response, then said, “This is it, the big one, the final order. There is to be no fighting! Retreat! Retreat at once!”

Slamming down the telephone he turned to Max.

“I want you to contact Count John. Tell him that Dramocles capitulates. Tell him I ask no terms, I will even give up my throne to keep the peace. Do you understand?”

Max looked unhappy, but he nodded and hurried to a telephone.

Dramocles looked at Otho, and some of his rancor became evident as he said, “The war’s off and the atomic holocaust is canceled. That ought to fix you and your lousy immortality.”

Otho said, “You always were an ungrateful kid. I could make you regret this, Dramocles. But to hell with it, and with you.” He rose and went to the curving staircase that led to a roof garden on top of the Operations Room. He turned at the top of the stairs and shouted, “You’re stupid, Dramocles, just plain stupid!” Then he went out.

43

Rufus put down the telephone. He was well aware of the fleeting irreversibility of the instant, the amoral and unrepentent instant, remorselessly transmuting itself into the next instant, and then into the one after that. His men were watching him expectantly. Drusilla was looking at him with that weird look he had begun to dislike. All were waiting for him to make the final decision.

Rufus didn’t know what to do. Dramocles’ order made no sense. What advantage could he hope to gain by this? Rufus knew the extent and ability of Glorm’s military strength as well as Dramocles himself. No strategem, no subterfuge, could hope to retrieve this situation once the enemy ships had passed a certain point, if, indeed, they had not done so already.

Unless Dramocles actually meant to surrender … But that was unthinkable.

Rufus clutched his head, trying to still the buzz and clash of thoughts. What was he to do? Assuming that he wanted to help Dramocles–an assumption that was growing increasingly difficult to maintain–he must do what Dramocles wanted. But what did Dramocles want, really? Attack or retreat? Ambush or capitulation?

Since there was nothing reliable to base his decision on, Rufus decided to do what he himself thought best.

He turned to his commanders. “Attack!” he cried, or rather, howled, due to pent-up breath and emotion.

“Attack whom?” his commanders howled back, sticklers for detail, just as he had trained them.

“John and Haldemar’s fleets! Wipe them out, lads!”

His officers looked at each other. The senior commander said, “Lord Rufus, the enemy is irretrievably out of range. By the time we catch up with them, they’ll be at Glorm. There’s no way we can prevent them from bombarding the planet. Dramocles will have to surrender.”

“You heard my order. Pursue and destroy the enemy.”

“The Glormish fleet will be in our way.”

“I don’t care. Blow them apart if they interfere. Do it now.” Rufus’s nostrils flared, the muscles in his cheeks and forehead tensed with emotion. Stress lines wrinkled his face from the sides of his nose to beneath his chin.

His commanders just stood, staring at him. Rufus glared back. Then his shoulders slumped. “Cancel that last order,” he said. “Have the fleet hold position. Dramolces is surrendering. The war is over.”

44

Count John’s command ship,
Ovipositer One
, was equipped with everything necessary for a potentate in space. John himself occupied a three-room suite, located admidships. It was reminiscent of an ancient Terran drawing room, with its harp-back chairs, Spode china, Adam couch, and Hepplewhite breakfront. John himself was seated at an elegant little rosewood table, writing notes on the Glorm campaign. He was planning on turning them into a television series later. Anne had a separate suite adjoining his.

It was here that his equerry found him, soon after the fleet’s arrival at the periphery of Glorm.

“Sire,” the equerry said, “we have made contact with the enemy.”

“Fine,” John said. “Has the shooting begun yet?”

“No, Sire. We have received a puzzling message from Glorm.”

“What does it say?”

“It is from Dramocles, Sire. He surrenders.”

John swung his short legs away from the table and stood up. He gave the equerry a suspicious squint. “Surrendered? It must be a trick. Where is the Glormish fleet?”

“They have pulled back, Sire. The approaches to Glorm are open to us. Dramocles has publicly announced his intention of avoiding war at all costs. He has even offered to abdicate, if that is the only way to achieve peace.”

The connecting door between suites opened and Anne came in. She was wearing a trim blue-gray uniform, and her brassy hair was swept back and piled up beneath a military cap. Insignia on her shoulders proclaimed her a general of marines. She had intended to lead the first strike force in person, not out of innate bellicosity, but simply to get the job done as economically as possible in view of Crimsole’s cash-flow difficulties.

Anne asked the equerry, “What about Rufus?”

“He offers no opposition. His forces remain at the perimeter of Druth.”

“How strange,” John said. “It’s unlike Dramocles to give up without a fight. I wonder if he intends some
ruse de guerre
.”

“How could he?” Anne asked. “All his and Rufus’s forces are accounted for. He had nothing left to trap us with.”