Dramocles: An Intergalactic Soap Opera (5 page)

Chuch sat down without being invited, poured himself a muggard of wine, sipped at it fastidiously.

John, red-faced from drink, said, “Well, my Lord Chuch, have you been off discussing this latest treachery with your father, two-faced Dramocles?”

“Neither of the King’s faces wished to see me,” said Chuch. “Rudolphus told me that the King’s heart was sore vexed over what he’d had to do. There was some mention of aliens. What did he say to you, King Snint?”

Snint said, “He took me aside for private audience. His face portrayed distress, his voice trembled, yet he rarely met my eye. ‘Snint,’ said he, ‘I am much embarrassed by a recent turn of events, though I myself am guilty of no wrongdoing. Just minutes ago, my agents in Lekk reported that a force of aliens landed on the northern promontory of Catalia in the province of Llull. They numbered in the tens of thousands and were well armed. My agents identified them as Sammack nomads, of the Sammak-Kalmucki horde which has been coming into our region of space for the last century with their old-fashioned spaceships filled with smelly livestock. This group, however, was one of the elite Sammak battle groups, obviously come to try the defenses of our worlds before summoning the main horde. Since Lekk has no standing army, and since hesitation might prove fatal, I have ordered my Commander Rux to wipe out these invaders without mercy. The rapidity and sureness of our response will impress their warlords, and save us from grievous trouble in the future.’ ”

“Did you believe him?” Chuch inquired.

“Of course not,” said Count John. “But Snint feigned agreement. What else could he do?”

“What about Rufus? How did he react to the news?”

John smiled maliciously. “Sweat sprang to his loyal brow, and his mouth turned down in pain and disbelief. Yet still he declined to condemn Dramocles. He said it was a time of trials for us all, not least our host. He counseled us to be patient a little longer. ‘How long?’ I asked. ‘Until he takes your kingdom or mine?’ He had no answer for that, but turned away and went to his chambers, perplexed, disturbed, but still stubbornly loyal to Dramocles.”

Suddenly, Adalbert lifted his head from the table and sang in a thin, bleary voice,

“Saddles and soap trays

Goldfish and zeers

Came into Aardvark

All in one year.”

Then he laid his head down again and slept.

“Poor wretched little king,” John said. “But no matter. What’s good for Dramocles must be good for us all, for has not Dramocles himself told us so? Prince, you should join your father in wassailing and mirthful merriment.”

“I understand your bitterness,” Chuch said, “but it carries you too far. You very well know the disesteem which exists between Dramocles and myself. I am most vehemently opposed to the King’s present course of action, and, indeed, to the King himself.”

Snint said, “All of this is well known,” and John nodded grudgingly.

“How could it be otherwise?” Chuch asked. “Never has he loved me. My functions in the government are few and ceremonial. Despite my years of military training, Dramocles has never let me command so much as a platoon of soldiers. And although I am still considered the heir apparent, I consider it unlikely that I will ever inherit the throne.”

“It sounds like a tedious position,” said Snint, “for an ambitious young man such as yourself.”

Chuch nodded. “Since coming into man’s estate, I have been forced to stew in my own ineffectuality, forever at the mercy of my father’s absentminded whim. There was nothing I could do about it. Until now.”

John sat up straight, and his small eyes grew more attentive. “What about now?”

Chuch set down his muggard. “I’ll not mince words. I wish to stand beside you, Count John and King Snint, in the struggle for hegemony that fast approaches.”

John and Snint looked at each other. Snint said, “Surely you jest with us, young Prince. The ties of blood are strong. This momentary pique will pass.”

“Damnation!” cried Chuch. “Will you give me the lie, then?”

“Softly, Prince, I meant but to test you. Tell me, what do you think Dramocles has in mind?”

“It must be apparent to you that his goal can be nothing less than the restoration of the old Glormish Empire. And you must admit that one planet seized and another invaded is a good beginning. But after this, the going gets harder. Neither Aardvark nor Lekk is militarily significant. But he’ll not get into Crimsole so easily, I think.”

“Not with my good wife Anne in command during my absence,” said John.

“Nor will he invade Druth,” said Chuch, “for he needs Rufus’s strong spacefleet. And there is still Haldemar to consider, as he sits in his distant planet of Vanir and considers the import of events. The outcome is unclear. But I’ll stake my life on Dramocles losing, especially if we can come to an agreement between ourselves.”

“What would you hope to get from such an agreement?” asked Snint.

“No more than what I’m entitled to–kingship of Glorm after Dramocles has been killed or exiled.”

“Kingship of Glorm!” said John. “That’s a modest request indeed, coming from one who brings nothing to our cause but his good opinion of himself.”

“Do not take me lightly,” Chuch said, scowling.

“Such is not our intention,” said Snint. “We’ll take you as you are, with what you bring. So far, that is nothing. But welcome anyhow.”

Chuch rose. “Gentlemen, I must take my leave, for I go out to repair my fortunes. I think you’ll be gladder to see me when we meet again.”

John laughed, but Snint said, “I hope so, young Lord, and I believe it may be true.”

Chuch gave the briefest of bows and left the tavern.

11

The conquest of Lekk began well enough. Rux was a thorough professional. He always kept 150,000 troops on red alert in case anything should come up suddenly. Now he had those troops loaded into 50,000 three-man spaceships that were always fueled and ready. Within an hour, the invasion was under way.

Rux’s troops were mostly Mark IV robots from the Soldier Factory on Antigone. They were programmed to destroy anything that didn’t look like them. This kept the circuitry simple and the unit cost down. Dramocles had bought them at a bargain price because they had been superseded by the Mark Xs, the new humanitarian model capable of sparing women and children unless they acted hostile. Rux’s Mark IVs were not sophisticated troops, but Dramocles had plenty of them, and they seemed good enough for taking over a little place like Lekk.

Rux landed his robots without opposition on the large island of Xosa, assembling them on the plain of Unglaze to the southeast of Sour Face Pass. Unglaze was a barren stretch of land bounded on one side by the mountains of Eelor, on the other by the swift-moving Hrox River. Sour Face Pass was a natural gap in the mountains that shielded the village of Biscuit, King Snint’s home and therefore the administrative capital of Lekk. Rux figured that by seizing Biscuit, he would nip the bud of resistance before it had a chance to sprout (a typical figure of speech among the Sberrians). Rux could only fit seventy-five thousand robots into his line of battle, but they seemed more than enough. The Lekkian defenses at this time consisted of seven hundred male Lekkians who had been shamed by their neighbors into volunteering, and four hundred Drikaneans from Drik IV who had been vacationing on Lekk and whose hobby was fighting.

All that night on the plain of Unglaze you could hear the familiar prebattle sounds: the crackle pop of circuit breakers being tested, the soft squish squish of last-minute lube jobs, and the high-pitched clicks of robots torquing each other’s nuts to full tolerance. At first light, when the robots’ photoelectric sensors were able to function, Rux gave the order to attack. The robots advanced, an awesome wall of steel, shouting, “All glory to the Soldier Factory!” These were the only words they were programmed to utter.

The Lekkians had anticipated this move and taken countermeasures. Irrigation equipment had been hastily comandeered from neighboring villages and set up on the Lekkian portion of the plain. A full night’s watering turned this land into a bog, into which Rux’s troops charged, or rather, waded. The robots suffered many short circuits, for they were dry planet troops and their water seals were more ornamental than efficient. They floundered in the mud, their ranks in disarray and their traffic pattern in confusion. At this moment the Lekkians attacked. A shock force of four hundred Lekkian and Drikanean troops mounted on mud skimmers penetrated Rux’s right flank. They were armed with sledgehammers and welding torches. In a matter of minutes they had created a combination traffic jam and junkyard, and they retired with insignificant losses. A second thrust through the center brought the robots to a complete halt. When the sun set, the thin Lekkian line was intact. Rux unhappily retired his troops for refueling, and wired Dramocles for more and better equipment.

12

Prince Chuch dispatched Vitello to the principality of Ystrad, with an urgent request that his sister, Drusilla, receive him. Upon receiving an affirmative answer, he arranged an immediate departure. He decided to pilot his own space yacht there, since Dramocles might soon ground all nonmilitary spacecraft, if he had not done so already. When he arrived at the spaceport, however, he was gratified to see that traffic was moving normally. He had a moment of anxiety when he gave his name to Ground Control and requested clearance. But it was granted without delay, and soon he was aloft.

Once airborne, Chuch fed his destination into the ship’s computer. The city and outlying regions of Glorm fell away below him. He crossed the Sardapian Sea, and saw, gray in the distance, the mountains of Glypher. He crossed the Box Forest and soon the Euripean River appeared, a meandering silver thread. This marked the easternmost border of Drusilla’s domain. Below him was the land of Ystrad, a green place of forested hills. To the north the gleaming surface of Lake Melachaibo came into view, and on its near shore was Tarnamon, the many-turreted castle wherein his sister, Drusilla, lived. Receiving landing clearance, Chuch set down at the small spaceport nearby. Vitello was there to meet him.

The inhabitants of Ystrad, the Ystradgnu, were a non-Glormish people of considerable antiquity. They were a gentle folk, and hospitable to strangers, except on the occasions when they needed a sacrifice for one of their deities. Their principal exports were poetry and songs, which were in great demand among the races of the galaxy with no poetry or songs of their own. The annotation and analyzation of the Ystradgnu arts provided an entire industry for the analogists of the neighboring island of Rungx.

Most of the Ystradgnu made their living by grazing herds of porcupines on their green hillsides and exporting the quills to the Uurks, a nonhuman people who had never disclosed why they needed them.

The Ystradgnu had a method of ground transportation unlike anything else on Glorm. Travel between points on Ystrad was effected by trampoline networks. The trampolines, spaced an average of fifteen feet apart, crisscrossed the countryside. The Ystradgnu had been building and maintaining them since time beyond memory. The trampolines were made of heavy canvas and dyed in various bright colors–though by ancient tradition never yellow–and a large part of Ystrad’s revenue went to their upkeep. Viewed from the air, they appeared as complex patterns of multicolored dots. There was a legend that these patterns were part of a giant mandala, left there by the mysterious race that had introduced the porcupine to Ystrad and then vanished. It was a colorful sight on a Saturday, when the quill collectors and farmers bounced to the city for the weekly fair and quill skill competitions. All of that trampoline work gave the Ystradgnu the short, thick, heavily muscled legs that they considered the epitome of both masculine and feminine beauty, and which enabled the quill collectors to scramble up and down the hills after their porcupines.

“Ridiculous,” Prince Chuch declared, and insisted on a more dignified means of transportation. There did exist a taxi service for “spindleleggers,” as all non-Ystradgnu were called. A cab took Chuch and Vitello to the great gothic castle on a crag overlooking Lake Melachaibo, where Drusilla kept the mysteries of the Great Goddess. This religion had, since ancient times, been concerned with fertility, piety, and the strict observation of ritual. Drusilla, as high priestess for Glorm, was considered the living representative of the Goddess, and spoke for her in the drugged frenzy that is necessary for true prophecy. Drusilla was also the final authority on that distinctive feature of the religion known as The Great Decorum.

They proceeded on foot through the castle gate and into gloomy stone corridors illuminated only by beams of light through narrow slit windows high overhead. Chuch turned up his collar, saying, “It likes me not, these women’s mysteries.” And Vitello said, “This isn’t the way I came last time.”

When they reached the central keep a high iron door opened and Drusilla stepped forward. Of middling height she was, and deep-breasted beyond the common consideration. Her hair, a glistening cascade of tooled red bronze, fell in fiery wavelets around her shapely shoulders. Her face, haughty and beautiful, framed cold gray eyes.

“Come in,” she said. “Sorry to have inconvenienced you. We’re having the main entrance hall recarpeted.”

Vitello was sent down to the lesser banquet hall to get some dinner. Drusilla led Prince Chuch to the Willow Audience Chamber. Brother and sister faced each other for the first time in nearly two years.