Mutiny in Space (18 page)

Jory sighed. The expression on his face did not change, but some of the tenseness left his body. And, as if this were perhaps what he had been waiting for, for the first time Torry spoke up. “That’s the plain, honest truth, Mr. First,” he said, slowly. He sounded sincere.

Jory nodded. “I think … I really do think … that we should send for the other men.” A quick look flashed between Torry and Shore. “If we can’t work together peacefully, it might be better for us to part peacefully.”

Rond said, “Well … I see … I see no objection. It might be the best thing….”

“How do we know?” Torry began, swiftly and softly.

Jory interrupted. “Then, if Captain Rond will send for an equerry to carry a message to the others to gather here — ?”

Rond, nodding approval, rang; delivered the message; began once again to talk eagerly of the future. Andar was just as eager and just as talky. They talked to one another. Torry and Shore, a trifle warily, began to converse with Jory, but in a manner less wary than a minute before. Clearly, they’d been afraid that the First Officer was going to go for the other men himself. And they hadn’t trusted him or what he might have intended. But, with no chance for him to cook up any plot with his fellows, the need for caution had diminished.

Their story was simple enough. Horrified and dismayed by the ruin, rapine, and murder which the mass of the crew was comitting; equally horrified by Darnley’s growing insanity (“
We
seen it, clearly enough, even if nobody else did”), the three had agreed to desert the mutineers at the first chance. And, at the first chance, they had done so. Their position was infinitely difficult. They faced danger from the Bosun, from the other mutineers. They could expect no mercy from them, if found; none, if found by any of the Sword-Ladies. The plain people of the country, with no reason to distinguish them from marauding mutineers, might easily have slain them at the first opportunity. And the same might have held true for Rond and Cane and their men. So the three lived the lives of hunted fugitives, even though no one, it now appeared, had actually been hunting them.

“So it wasn’t until now, sir, that we really felt it was safe to show ourselves. You see that, don’t you?” asked Shore. “Don’t you see that?”

Jory ran his hand down his face. “I don’t know what to say. I really don’t know what to say.”

The men, when they arrived, seemed equally uncertain. Levvis said that it made no difference to him, one way or the other. He had his own plans. Mars didn’t care, either, as long as he wasn’t interfered with. Crammer said that whatever Captain Rond said was all right with him. “As long as the farmers get a decent break,” was Duston’s comment. Storm shrugged.

“What do
you
say, Mr. Cane?” asked Storm. They all turned to Jory.

“To begin with,” Jory said, slowly, “I guess we’d better establish an atmosphere of mutual trust.” He unbuckled his holster, put his laser-gun on the table. Andar, looking impossibly sincere, immediately followed suit. Torry and Shore, looking at the other men, hesitated, their hands moving here and there about their bodies.

“No need to be afraid,” Rond said. “Here — I’ll do the same. There were only these three among us.” After only a second or two, Torry and Shore also complied.

Jory nodded, and, calmly, very calmly, picked his up again and covered the three newcomers. Shore gave a cry which was almost a squeal. And Jory said, “Levvis — Mars — Storm — take the other weapons, cover me. Captain Rond — ”

White and red, by turns, with anger, Rond stuttered, for once, speechless.

“ — you may want to take up your own gun again. Sir, these men are to be searched. If I am wrong, I will apologize.
Strip!
” This last, to Andar, Torry, Shore. They protested, they argued, shouted, wove back and forth on their feet. But, finally, they stripped. Crammer, at Jory’s command, searched every garment. His face showed his increasing understanding, his increasing disgust.

“Gold!” he growled. “Jewels! And more. And more. I suppose, huh, I suppose you won them in a card game? I suppose you didn’t kill or rob anybody for them? Huh. Sure …”

And Jory said, jerking his gun, “Never mind the moralizing, Crammer. You — Andar, Torry, Shore — you dirty space-apes!
You thought you could hold out on us, did you?
”

He had punched the right button. All three burst into passionate speech. No — No — He had them wrong, the First Officer had them all wrong! They didn’t intend to hold out on anybody. They intended to divvy up, fair and square, according to the rules of the road. Only they hadn’t had a chance to, they hadn’t been given a chance, wouldn’t Mr. Cane give them a
chance?

“A chance to what? There’s the stuff on the table, now.”

Ah, no. Oh,
no!
That was just a sample, just a tickle, just souvenirs. The
real
stuff —

“We made a map, we made a chart, there was no deceit intended, it’s all down in black and white, there it is, in my pocket, a whole cave full, buried there, for all of us, Jory, Captain, all you other men, it’s all, it’s all, ah — ” Andar’s tell-tale tongue failed him. He clicked and grunted, made noises with his throat and chest, panted, sweated.

Rond stood, silent, his face the color of putty.

All the men looked at Jory Cane. “Get dressed, then,” he said. “And we’ll have a look at that chart, that cave. We’ll take along some shovels, too.”

Torry was the only one who spoke, as they were leaving. “What the hell,” he said, softly. “It was all there for the taking. So we
took
. What the hell….”

Andar was still afraid, the most obviously afraid of the three. But he couldn’t keep still. He began talking as they passed through the gate in the wall of the Holy Court, and he hardly stopped to swallow his own thick spit. He had been talking, talking, talking, all his life, probably. He could not stop now.

“You have to realize, you have to realize. These people aren’t civilized. They’re savages — barbarians, primitives. Look at how they tried to kill you. It would’ve been foolish — There would’ve been no point to — We couldn’t act as though we were dealing with a race of people who were Guild Affiliates! No! No! Not that I mean to justify — Darnley — But, still! There was only one way to show them who was the master. Wasn’t there? Why, sociology — And, I mean, well, to the victor belongs the spoils. Oh,
sure
it does! We had to fight them, crush them, not wait for them to gain the advantage. Didn’t we?” He babbled, craning his neck so as to make sure everyone was listening, taking it all in. “And so it was only
reas
onable. You win, you get what they have. Am I right? Oh, of course, I’m right. You have to admit — ”

Shore said, “If it hadn’t been
us
— if
we
hadn’t done it — then the others would’ve! They did, anyway! So why
not
us? At least
we
never tortured anybody … at least, hardly anybody — ”

And Torry said, “Listen, listen. Besides the loot we got buried there in the cave — there’s
plenty
left. We can tell you. We know where — places that haven’t even been touched yet. You want to wait until we get this new government set up? It’ll be harder, then. Not that we couldn’t, who’s to stop us? But it’s easier now. What do you say? You’ve got the guns, you don’t even need to share them out again. Just let us show you where. And in case the stuff we got in mind, the gold, the silver, the jewels, in case it’s been hidden already well — ” His mouth exploded in a snort of contemptuous laughter.

“Well, we know ways to make them tell us where. We know
lots
of ways!”

They were about a quarter of a kilometer from the Holy Court. Jory looked at his men. He signaled a halt. “Are we all agreed?” he asked them.

They nodded. Levvis, Mars, Duston, Crammer, Storm. “Rotten wood, you can’t season,” Levvis said.

Shore was the first to realize, and once again he gave that fearsome cry. Andar burst out in a freshet of words. But nobody listened. Only Torry was calm. “You got to try us,” he said. “We’re entitled to a trial. The Guild — ”

Jory shook his head. “The Guild,” he said, “is dead — as far as we’re concerned.
As
for a trial, certainly you’re entitled to it. You’ve been having it. This whole thing has been a trial ever since I laid my gun on the table. I didn’t want to, I didn’t dare to trust to hunches. Well, now I don’t have to. You condemned yourselves when you defended yourselves. There can’t be any way to trust you. There can’t be any peace as long as you’re alive.

“But,” he said, “there will be peace — ”

It was nasty, it was necessary, it was soon done.

The silence was long in being broken. “Well,” said Crammer, a while later, “those shovels came in handy sooner than I thought.”

• • •

The scholars and sages of the Holy Court had searched every annal and record in the old libraries for precedents on choosing the great council. The method finally arrived at was for every group of one hundred to select one of their number by lot. Those thus selected divided themselves, in turn, into groups of one hundred, from each of which one person was elected by voice vote. So the process went — lot, election, lot, until only one hundred remained. These were seated in front of the multitude facing the steps of the Temple of the Clouds. To the right was Rond and his men; to the left were the few surviving Great Ladies, including Moha, saved by the Dame’s orders that she be confined to her fief.

A group of priests sang their litany in the Temple Hall, offering salt and borax to the fires. The scent of their incense drifted out. Then the great gong sounded, the multitude knelt and bowed down, and King Mukanahan, his small figure almost lost in the fullness of the elaborate ceremonial robes, preceded by ornately clad chamberlains and all the equerries, appeared at the topmost step and mounted to his throne-like seat. The gong sounded once more. The crowd arose. A chamberlain knelt and presented him his address upon a golden plate. He took it, and began to read.

There was no sound throughout the entire audience.

The opening was the traditional one of greeting to his brothers, Night and Day, Land and Sea and Air; and of thanks to them for their continual gifts to him and his people. He spoke next of the thousand years during which the High Keeper of the King’s Castles had ruled in his name.

“Since the events which are known to all,” he said, “my Castles have been without a High Keeper. I have been asked to select a new one. I will not do so. We have no need of castles now, nor they, of Keepers. Remembering the prophecy that when the great bird should slay her dam and Heaven and Earth should burn, the Great Men would dwell in the land and rule in equity, I have consulted with the oldest of the new Great Men now among us. I have learned much….

“But I have yet much to learn, and much to do. This, our Land, the Great North Land, cannot return to the ways of old. I do not feel myself equal to guide it in the new ways it must follow. I am no longer young, and I am weary. Let this council speak the will of all the people. But let it be guided by a new rule.”

He turned to his left, beckoned. Rond went even straighter. In a low voice he said, “Come with me, Cane. But keep one step behind.”

Together they walked across the open space and up the steps. Jory was in silent misery. He caught the King’s eye. Suddenly, he knew what he had to do; and he knew that the King knew it, too. He took two steps at a stride, then one quick step more. Mukanahan arose and moved to one side. Jory sat in his place.

He nodded to Rond, frozen more in astonishment than outrage. He nodded to the scarlet and black figures. He nodded to his men. Then he arose and bowed to the great council and to the greater multitude behind it.

“Let no one be my enemy,” he said. “For I will be no one’s enemy. We shall be one people, helping one another, for only therein lies the way that the land and all upon it may live in justice and in peace.”