Sidney's Comet (30 page)
Authors: Brian Herbert
Tags: #Fiction, #Fantasy, #General, #science fiction
“He c-couldn’t have p-planted bombs,” Sergeant Keefer stammered. “He looked so harmless. . .”
“And that would make him the perfect saboteur!” Mayor Nancy Ogg boomed. “Surely, even you can see that, Sergeant.”
“Yes, of course.” Sergeant Keefer hung his head.
“Speed up your background investigation,” the Mayor commanded. “I want a full report on this man in one hour!”
From the couch of her living room module, Carla heard the chimes of a neighbor’s digital cuckoo, counted six chirps.
Supper time,
she thought, infuriated.
She wiped tears from her face, took a deep breath and mentoed her telephone to call Samantha Petrie. A tele-cube rose from the phone’s cradle. The cube floated through the air, paused in front of Carla’s mouth.
“Billie hasn’t called all day,” Carla said, trying to regain her composure.
“You were going to get some of your permeage license forms filled out today, weren’t your Petrie asked. “Why didn’t you call me earlier?”
“I took the whole day off,” Carla said, oblivious to the question. “He should have been here this morning.” She sobbed, put her hand over the tele-cube, then released it. “That dirty . . .”
“Maybe something came up,” Petrie said, trying to reassure her friend.
“Yeah. About five-ten, blue eyes, a good—”
“No, I mean at work. Did you try there?”
“Several times. I tried his home too.”
“That IS strange.”
“I don’t know whether to be angry or worried.”
“Get some sleep, Carla. I’ll see you at work tomorrow. If he’s not there, we’ll call Bu-Cops.”
Carla hung up the telephone, watched disconsolately as the tele-cube flitted back to its place. She curled up on the couch, and presently great sobs came upon her, reverberating through her body.
“Damn him!” she cursed as her anger and suspicion took control. “I thought he would change. . . . ” At long last she fell into a troubled slumber, resolving never to speak with Birdbright again.
Twosayer William stood on the lowest step of the platform which supported Uncle Rosy’s great chair, looking across the chamber at a full assemblage of hooded sayermen. They looked back in the low light with sorrowful eyes, their mouths partly open in shock and turned down at the corners. It Was nearly time to retire for the night, but no one thought of sleep. Rumors of murder and intrigue had been in the air since mid-afternoon.
“The memory circuits of Uncle Rosy’s tuxedo meckie have been checked,” Twosayer said, raising his voice so that all could hear. “Onesayer died yesterday in an attempt to take our Master’s life.”
The sayermen gasped.
Twosayer continued: “This morning, for reasons unknown, Uncle Rosy instructed the meckie to take his own sacred life as well.”
A whispering and moaning swept over the group. Some sayermen fell to their knees, crying and wailing. Twosayer heard their swellings of despondency: “It cannot be true!” they said. “What are we to do now?” “All is lost!”
“Peace be upon you, brothers!” Twosayer called out. “Calm yourselves!”
“Did you see the Master’s body?’ Threesayer asked from the front of the assemblage.
“I saw His Holiness,” Twosayer replied sadly. “But his features had so aged I could not recognize him.”
“We wish to see him,” another sayerman called out, ‘To pay our final respects.”
“I thought it best to send him directly to Astro-Disposal,” Twosayer said, narrowing his eyes and glancing around the chamber. “I expect he is being catapulted now.”
“That is best,” Foursayer said.
Then others agreed. “Yes,” they said. “That is .best.”
“Our Master would not have wanted the sayermen to see him like that,” Twosayer said. “Let us remember him as he was.”
“Yes,” most of the assemblage agreed. “Let us remember him as he was.”
“After a suitable period,” Twosayer said, pushing out his chest a bit in pride, “I shall assume the duties of Master.”
“Do we have time to wait?” a sayerman asked, his voice reflecting panic, “with the garbage comet due to hit tomorrow?”
“There is no stopping it!” someone said. “A cappy has stolen the space cruiser . . . the comet follows each change in Earth’s orbit!”
Twosayer did not reply, considered the crisis.
“Take the holy duty now,” a sayerman in the back urged.
“We need you now!” another said. “The AmFed people need you now!”
A murmuring rolled across the chamber, and generally it was agreed that Twosayer should not delay in donning the Master’s robes.
But then Lastsayer rolled to the front, holding a copy of the Sayer’s Guide high over his head. “It is not so easy!” he announced, yelling to be heard over the multitude.
“Who is that?” someone asked.
“What did he say?”
“Who is he?’
“It is Lastsayer Steven! He holds a Sayer’s Guide!”
“What is it, Lastsayer?” Twosayer asked nervously.
Lastsayer opened the volume, auto-flipped to a page near the back and read aloud from an internally-illuminated page: “If the Beloved Master dies or falls so gravely ill that he cannot conduct the responsibilities of his holy chair, that person holding the position of Onesayer will assume the holy chair.” Lastsayer looked up from the book and gazed around the room. “We have no Onesayer,” he said somberly.
“I am the senior sayerman!” Twosayer exclaimed, wrinkling his hooked nose angrily. “I am first in line to assume the holy chair!”
“But it does not say so in the guide,” Lastsayer said. “A strict interpretation . . .”
“But surely we can discern Uncle Rosy’s intent,” Eightsayer said, rolling forward.
“Yes,” agreed another.
Threesayer rolled to the front, short-stepped to the stair level on which Twosayer stood. He was taller than Twosayer, and Twosayer moved to the next higher step. “Our newest sayerman is correct,” Threesayer said. “Who are we to speculate upon Uncle Rosy’s intentions? He often skipped one sayerman over another. For all we know, he intended to advance any one of us to the position vacated by Onesayer Edward.”
Now the assemblage swung another way. “That is right,” they said. “Threesayer is right.”
“Uncle Rosy always had a special liking for me,” remarked one.
“I disagree. He favored me!”
“He called me exceptionally bright.”
“I was skipped twice.”
“Maybe
I
am the Chosen One.”
“It could just as easily be
me!”
Twosayer became increasingly angry as the sayermen continued to argue, and he pushed Threesayer off the step. “You and Lastsayer plotted this to take away what is rightfully mine!” Twosayer screamed.
Threesayer fell to one knee, then recovered his footing and shot back: “Not true!” Turning to the assemblage, he said in a loud, clear tone: “Uncle Rosy would never have made such a sayerman our Master! A sayerman does not push his brother!”
“That is right!” the assemblage called out. “That is right!”
A murmuring rolled across the group, and this gradually increased in intensity. The consensus was that Twosayer should not have done what he did.
After that, a wave of sentiment went in favor of Threesayer becoming the new Master. But this succumbed when Foursayer and Ninesayer rolled forward to cite a host of apparently logical reasons why Threesayer should not assume the chair.
So it went into the wee hours of the morning, with all the sayermen arguing heatedly over the matter. Everyone had a favorite, be it himself or another, and there was a good deal of shouting back and forth. Finally, they grew tired of battling, and the sayermen retired for the evening without having decided upon a leader. They would pray for divine intervention to stop the comet.
* * *
In Ordinance Room Six, the youngsayermen were seated on the floor in a half circle around Sayer Superior Lin-Ti:
“What sort of force was the comet?” Lin-Ti asked. “Was it a godlike thing?”
“In a sense, yes,” a youngsayerman to Lin-Ti’s right said. “For all things contain an element of God. But it was not sent by God . . . not directly, anyway. God gave all the life forces in the universe free will, and those from the Realm of Magic. . . . ”
“What do you mean by God?”
“It is a convenient term, Sayer Superior . . . for the being which resides in the Realm of the Unknown.”
“Think on this, youngsayers: ask yourselves if each layer of existence might not have another layer beyond it . . . supervising . . . or perhaps just watching . . . the layer below. We know that there is a Realm of Inertia and Gas which is higher than the Realm of Flesh . . . and beyond Inertia and Gas is the Realm of Magic.”
“And beyond that . . . the Realm of the Unknown!” a youngsayer said.
Lin-Ti lifted one hand, pointing his forefinger upward. “But what if this ‘unknown’ is really many realms . . . a succession of realms going ever higher?”
The youngsayerman thought for a moment, then said: “And what if the realms are not hierarchical? What if they are all at the same level?”
Lin-Ti smiled as he watched the youngsayerman think.
Excitedly, the youngsayerman said: “What if we are at the same level with God?”
“You mean we are God?” Lin-Ti asked.
“Yes. And no. We are magical, too . . . all these things could be part of the truth . . . of one existence. . . . ”
“It is a circle, is it not?” Lin-Ti said. “We are what we are not . . . ever-changing but ever the same. . . . ”
Chapter Fifteen
S
HARING FOR PROSPERITY, FOR FURTHER READING AND DISCUSSION
Labor Intensity Code (L.I. Code): Established by the Council of Ten in 2518, in honor of the two-hundredth anniversary of Uncle Rosy’s disappearance. The key tenet of the code held as follows: “If two people can perform a given task, that is better than one.”
Friday, September 1, 2605
A digital reader on the Shamrock Five instrument panel indicated it was nearly four A.M. by New City time, and Sidney gave this a fleeting thought as he unclasped his hands.
Prayer isn’t working,
he thought. His eyes and bones ached. His brain was unsupportive.
How many times did I pray during the night? he
wondered, wearily.
I called out to God AND to Uncle Rosy. . . .
For a moment, Sidney attempted a count, but quickly gave up the effort.
Sidney stretched and yawned as he stared across the dashboard at the Great Comet. It loomed so large now that he imagined reaching out of the cockpit to touch it. An immense sweeping fountain of luminous lavender and green dust flowed from the comet’s flaming orange nucleus, forming a single tail. Only moments before, there had been six distinct yellow tails and an icy blue nucleus, but the comet had changed as it was wont to do.
Sidney smiled and spoke in a tone reserved for the endeared: “You’re a vain one, aren’t you? like a fine lady, you are . . . changing outfits all the time. . . . ”
The comet veered off against the midnight blue starcloth of space, then returned to its original course. It drew closer, ever closer.
“You heard me, didn’t you? We’re friends now, Great Comet—but why don’t you do as I ask?”
The comet was unresponsive, and Sidney thought,
Friends, hell. I love that mass of fire and gas . . . as much as . . . no, more than . . . I love Carla.
Sidney turned his head to the right at a metallic clang, saw Madame Bernet stirring to life. The meckie rattled its knives against a wall as it struggled to get up, its eyes open wide and flashing crazily.
Sidney half surprised himself by remaining calm.
I had hoped the comet would get me instead,
he thought.
But now he entertained no thoughts of fleeing. Instead, he watched the killer meckie rise to its feet with its razor-sharp knives slashing at the air.
“Die, fleshcarrier!” the meckie screeched as it rolled toward him slowly, smiling evilly.
Sidney’s brain went numb.
Fleshcarrier?
he thought.
Am I having another nightmare? Things are getting mixed up!
The killer meckie continued to close in on him, repeating the epithet: “Die, fleshcarrier, die!”
Sidney’s gaze fixed on the blades. He saw glimmering red and orange reflections from the comet on the shiny steel surfaces.
Any second now,
he thought.
The first cut . . .
He closed his eyes and grimaced from the expected pain. But it did not arrive, and at the sound of gears grinding, Sidney opened his eyes slit-wide. The blades were poised there, only centimeters from his face!
Then the blades receded, and as Sidney opened his eyes all the way, he saw the meckie tip backward and fall to its back. Within seconds, the cockpit was silent, and all Sidney sensed was the pounding of his own pulse.
“Was it luck again, fleshcarrier?”
a tenor voice in his brain asked.
“Don’t tease him anymore,”
the other, deeper voice said.
“We’ve had our fun.”
The voice paused, then said:
“We activated the meckie, fleshcarrier
. . .
through magic.”
Just wanted to have a little fun with you,”
the tenor voice said.
“But you’re a fuddy-duddy of the first order!”
“I have to agree,”
said the other.
“At the very least he could have tried to get away!”
“I imagined the whole thing,” Sidney said, staring at the comet. “The meckie, the comet, voices in my brain . . . this whole adventure.” He smiled, threw both hands up in the air. “Actually, I’m in a Bu-Med psycho ward somewhere having part of my brain cut out.”
A staccato peppering of laughter riddled his brain.
“Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh. . . . ”
“Emergency!” the ship computer reported. “Ship’s E-Cell charge almost consumed! Begin throwing loose articles into the emergency fuel hopper!”
Before Sidney could react, the speakercom blared: “We have you in sight, Shamrock Five! Heave-to and prepare for boarding!”
Sidney’s heart jumped. In the video console he saw two long-range gunships approaching from the rear and closing fast.
“Don’t listen to them, fleshcarrier!”
the voices in Sidney’s brain said.
“Try to get away! You must get away!”
“More of your blasted party games?” Sidney asked.
There was no response.
“Heave-to, Shamrock Five!” the speakercom repeated.
“Aw, what the hell!” Sidney said. He tore a biomedical support pack off the wall and tossed it into the emergency fuel hopper. Flipping to manual mode, he grabbed the control stick. His palm was warm and moist against the cool tita-steel plated surface.
Now the Shamrock Five seemed only minutes from a collision with the comet.
I’ve got to get away from these guys,
Sidney thought.
Maybe I can still. . . .
He grimaced.
“Okay, Captain Malloy,” Sidney whispered. “Here we go!”
He hit the red super-accelerator toggle, watched his console as the gunships disappeared in the distance.
They’ll punch-out too,
he thought, his gaze glued upon the screen.
And that was my last bit of energy.
The two gunships were back now, and Sidney saw brilliant lances of weapons fire cutting toward him. “Damn!” he cursed. “Just give me a little more time!” He felt there was no use trying to escape, but leaned on the control stick anyway. The Shamrock Five responded quickly, darting ahead, still closer to the comet.
“Veer away!” Sidney yelled, glaring at the comet’s flaming orange nucleus. “Veer away, damn you! Don’t hit Earth!”
But the comet continued to bear down on him.
The console screen showed the gunships changing course, then went black.
What a time for my equipment to go gunnysack!
he thought. The screen flickered back on, and he saw lances of weapons fire again. The Shamrock Five cut to starboard.
When Sidney next looked in the console screen, he saw only one pursuer. The other gunship had either fallen back or was taking a different attack course. Sidney mentoed for another view, but the screen went dark again. He hit the butt of his hand against the set. The screen remained black.
“Charge zero,” the computer reported.
A silent explosion tore through the cockpit, throwing glass-plex and plastic in every direction. Sidney felt the screaming pain of torn flesh and broken bones.
My right leg!
He thought.
So hot! It’s burning!
“Emergency! . . . Emergency! . . .” the computer blared.
Sidney felt faint, then something cool bathed his leg. He looked down to see it immersed in blue foam. None of the instruments were working now. The ship was not moving.
He took a deep breath, waited for the next hit.
Either that or the comet,
he thought.
It’s almost over now.
But as Sidney looked in his console, he saw the pursuing gunships veer off and speed away in the other direction. They became pinpricks, then disappeared.
Sidney bit his lower lip hard, braced for more pain.
I’m ready,
he thought.
Ready to die.
This
was the way Captain Malloy would have gone . . . risking his life for mankind.
A tear ran down his cheek. More followed.
Who will know?
he thought.
No parade, no words spoken in praise . . . no thought whatsoever of Sidney Malloy.
“It doesn’t matter!” he yelled. “It doesn’t matter!” But then he grimaced and thought:
It matters. I can’t lie to myself.
The Great Comet was icy blue and flaming red now, from its head to its misty toe. Eccentrically placed within the burning nucleus, Sidney saw the first appearance of a miniature comet having a head and tail of its own. This tiny comet flared white hot and expanded quickly until it consumed the entire mother comet, then faded into a nebulous haze and disappeared into the womb of the mother. Sidney thought of the comet’s complexity, wished that he could become a part of it, to roam forever through the heavens.
Oh, what an exalted existence that would be!
As Sidney thought this, the comet flared white hot again, but this time the tail was pulled into the nucleus and the comet appeared as a star. Although it was exceedingly bright, Sidney did not shield his eyes. This comet was not garbage to him . . . it was the most beautiful primordial state in the universe, a delicate but powerful combination of all elements.
“That trash IS rather pretty now, isn’t it?”
one of the voices said.
“This fleshcarrier appreciates beauty, I’ll say that for him,”
remarked another.
“Rather an appealing fellow, but slothlike
. . . . ”
“Turn the comet away!” Sidney screamed. “Turn it away!”
“We won’t,”
a tenor voice said.
“But you can.”
“Flesh be gone!”
a deep voice exclaimed.
Now the comet was a glowing, jagged ball of red fire, growing larger as it bore down on Sidney’s motionless ship. He felt it reaching across the icy darkness to him with an awesome, unstoppable power. For the first time in his life, Sidney felt very special. He shivered, then felt wonderfully warm and calm as the Great Comet consumed him in a cosmic whirlwind. As this happened, Sidney had a vision of a magical land in which suffering and pain were nonexistent.
“An idealist,”
the tenor voice said, scornfully.
“He’ll learn,”
said the other.
“Give him time.”
“Had a lot of fun with this one, didn’t we?”
the tenor voice said.
“Oh my, yes! Maybe we should keep the fleshcarriers around for a while. There seems no end to their foolish predicaments!” I’ll give the fleshcarriers your message,
Sidney thought.
You can trust me
The jagged fireball turned to gold, and a hundred violet plumes surged across the heavens to form a new tail. Men on the deep space observation station Drakus Ohm reported that the comet hung in the sky for several seconds like a giant scimitar. Then it began to move, slowly at first, like a pony trying out its legs for the first time. Soon the comet was frisky and lively, streaking one way and then the other across the great expanse of space.
Carla opened one eye, peered drowsily across the top of a tiny package wrapped in silver paper which sat on her coffee table. She was in the living room module of her condominium, and as she rose to rest on one elbow, a shooting pain from having slept on the couch all night shot through her lower back. Golden streaks of artificial dawn light washed across the room from a sun-lite panel along one wall, glinting off the shiny wrapping paper of the package.
Friday morning,
she thought.
I should call Samantha.
She shook her head briskly, swung both stockinged feet onto the carpet and stared at the neatly wrapped parcel. Leaning forward, she looked down to examine a tiny white scroll card which read, “For Carla.” That was all it said.
“From Billie,” she murmured angrily, grasping the parcel and lifting it to hurl it across the room. “If he thinks he can sweeten me . . .”
But something told her it was not from Billie, and she lowered her arm to hold the object in one open palm. Then Carla rolled it over and over, searching for a place to tear away the wrapping. But there was no edge to the paper, making it appear that it had been molded onto a box beneath.
Perplexed, the set the package back on the coffee table. As Carla pulled her hand away, the paper folded open along invisible seams, revealing a black velvet box. A hinged lid swung open automatically, and Carla’s astonished eyes beheld a star-shaped mother of pearl and burnished gold brooch inside.
“Oh!” she squealed, reached for the treasure. “It’s beauti . . .”
She caught herself, withdrew the hand. But she reached back quickly and lifted out the brooch. Seeing a hinge along one edge, she used her fingernail to open the brooch along the opposite side. Inside, a shimmering black surface filled the right side of the brooch as it lay open. On the left interior surface, a scroll inscription read: “Dearest Carla—This star will keep you safe.”
Carla flipped the brooch over several times, tried to find something more, a clue as to who might have given it to her. She examined the velvet box and the paper wrapping as well, but there was nothing whatsoever to indicate its source. She held the brooch open in both palms, stared into the black glass star inside.
Presently, Carla saw tiny twinkling silver stars in the blackness, as if she was looking into a window upon the universe. Away off in the distance, she saw a bright star approaching rapidly, blocking out the blackness around as it grew in size. Soon the star became too bright to behold, and Carla dropped the brooch to shield her eyes.
When she peeked through her fingers to look at the brooch where it rested open upon the carpet, she saw the brightness fade away to a white mist. Then the mist cleared and the saw an. image taking form. It showed a man and a woman asleep on their sides in a round bed.
Why,
Carla thought.
It’s Samantha Petrie
. . . .
Who’s she with?
. . . The man had covers over all but his forehead and hair. He stirred and rolled to his back, causing the covers to slip a little.
Carla recoiled in shock.
My Rosenbloom!
she thought.
Its Billie!
She reached down to pick up the brooch, watched Birdbright shift again, throwing one arm over Petrie’s shoulder.
Tears streamed down Carla’s cheeks and fell on the brooch, giving the image in the black glass a distorted appearance. She wiped her face with the back of one hand, snapped the brooch shut angrily.
I knew he was this way,
she thought, forcing the tears to stop.
I shouldn’t take it so hard. But I had so hoped
. . .