The Mammoth Book of Best New Science Fiction: 23rd Annual Collection (110 page)

“Then you would not have chained me,” said the Watchman, rattling his manacles.

The Captain sat until he felt his anger cool within him. Then he spoke in a voice most reasonable and even, “Watchman, if I could persuade you that there are no worlds hanging in the Void beneath our world, no Dreadnoughts of the Enemy, no war, except for the wars fought with the Enemy aboard our Ship, between here and Midline Darkhall, and spinward toward the Lesser Chasm, what then? If there is no world outside our world, no Weapons to fire, what reason have you them to withhold from me the Ring of Final Command?”

“No reason,” said the Watchman. “If there were no worlds below our feet, I would give the ring’s commands to you.”

“Then reckon this: If you are right, and there is a war in space below us, then this ship, and all aboard, were sent into that war, to fight, perhaps, to die, all in order to defend the ship called Earth from our Great Enemy.”

“Earth is not a ship. It is a planet. Earth is inside out, for the crew there live on the outer hull, and their air is outward from them. On Earth, gravity is backwards, and draws them toward their axis, so that they stand with their feet on the hull, with their heads looking down toward the stars.”

“Be that as it may; the Earthmen send these great ships far out into space to fight their wars, not so? This they did with all wisdom and intention, knowing that even the swiftest flight across the Void would take generations, not so?”

“It is so.”

“I ask you then, in all candor, how could this be? Who but a madman would dispatch his armies to fight across the Void, sending them to battlefields so far that the grandchildren of those sent out would be the only soldiers on the field?”

“I know not: yet it was done.”

“Leaving us ignorant of all? No one has even seen the Enemy stars, nor do we know them. How have we become so ignorant so soon?”

“My master said once that the Computer spoke to all the children, and instructed them. When the Computer fell silent, there were no written things aboard with which to teach the children. Much was lost; more was lost in the confusion of the wars and darkenings. What we know, we know by spoken lore; but in the past, all men knew the priestly arts, and could read the signs.”

Weston waved his hand impatiently, as if this were nothing to the point. “Heed me. I tell you, I have led men into battle, not once, but many times, both against the rebel elves of Alverin, and against the Enemy. Will you take me at my word, that no battle could be fought, nor any force commanded, unless the soldiers are willing to die for one another, or for their home corridors?”

“I believe it.”

“Now then: who aboard this ship is willing to die for Earth, which no one has ever seen; or is willing to die for those aboard the other ships of which myths speak; the Götterdämmerung or the Apocalypse? Are the crews and peoples of those mythic worlds willing to die for us? If so, why? Perhaps their great-grandfathers knew our great-grandfathers back when Earth first made us, but who knows them now? Do you see? Wars over such length of time cannot be possible.”

But the Watchman said, “The medicine of those times past was much greater than our own, and men expected lives many hundreds of years in length, due to things they had put inside their bodies; things we do not have, and cannot make with our scant arts. To the immortals, wars, no matter how long, are done with swiftly.”

The Captain knew a moment of doubt. His gaze rested on his giant; a man made huge and strong by arts the Captain knew had been lost. He also knew the old tales, which said that, before the Medical House was destroyed during the Second Barrage, all officers were young and ageless, able to see in the dark like cats, strong as dwarves, and instantly cured of any wound, poison, or hurt.

“Even were there such a war,” the Captain slowly said. “If we are, as you say, deep in the ranks of the Enemy, overlooked and ignored, to fire our Weapons now would mean the destruction of this world, if not now, then in the time of our children.”

At that moment came a great commotion at the silver doors, a sound of trumpets and alarms. There came a banging at the doors, and the lieutenant rushed in, his sword drawn.

“Sire,” called the lieutenant. “The rebels from abovedecks attack in great force! Alverin himself leads them! Already he has been struck by a dozen arrows; each time he plucks them forth and laughs. The men . . . the men are saying he is an Earthman!”

“Rally the men. Draw down the great doors at Spinhall Common Fork and at the Underroad. Flood the stairwells leading to deck Eight Thirty Six with oil. Then, withdraw the men behind the Great Barrier Wall and close the High Gate. Use hand pumps to withdraw some part of the air from the circular approach corridor; this will seal all door beyond the power of any battering-ram to breach.”

“But if he brings unlawful weapons? Explosives?”

“Fool. Alverin has never broken the Weapon Law; never cheated a treaty; never lied. Why do you think his rebellion does so poorly? They must be mad things to attack us now.”

“Will you come to lead us?”

“Presently; first I must do otherwise. Go!”

And when the man had left, Weston said to the Watchman Henwas, “With this Ring, I could call upon the Computer to close and open doors at will, extinguish lights, drain corridors of air. Tell me the Words!”

But Henwas said, “You did not think to hide the ring when your lieutenant entered here. He saw it. If he craves its power as much as you, he will be gathering men to lead against you here to seize the ring.”

“There is no more time for talk. Say the words, or I will order my giant to snap you like a wire!”

“You cannot escape the curse of the ring. Whoever does not have the ring craves to have it. So my master Himdall was told by the strange blind man who gave it first to him.”

“Strange blind man?”

“Perhaps he thought the curse would be alleviated if the ring were given to so remote a hermit as my master.”

“And did your master say what this man’s appearance was?”

“Many times, for he was most peculiar. The wanderer, he wore his hair long, like those of the lower decks, but walked with a staff, like an upper-deck man not used to our weight. He wore a wide-brimmed hat, like the men of the Green houses, where the light controls never dim their fierce glare; but he wore cusps of black glass before his eyes, like a darklander out here where lights still glow. On each shoulder he carried a bird, like men who walk in fear of poisoned corridors, who, when they see their pets keel over, flee.”

“Carradock! Go tell the Gatewatch to bring the other prisoner in! The description matches; it is he.”

When the giant was at the door, speaking to the guard, the Watchmen flexed his muscles hugely, and chains about his wrists snapped free. He bent down and tugged the chains about his ankles; the links bent and broke; but, by then, the giant had seen, and flung himself back across the room to fall upon the Watchman with his full strength.

For a moment they strove against each other, limbs intertwined, muscles knotted. Their strength was equal, yet the aged giant was more cunning in the art of wrestling; the giant twisted and flung the Watchman to the ground and fell atop him. By this time the guards from the door had run forward, and stood with pike ready, but could find no opening, and dared not strike for fear of hitting the giant.

When he rose, the giant had the Watchman’s arms pinned painfully behind his back, his hands twisted up. The giant was grinning. “You are a worthy opponent,” he whispered, panting.

“You also,” said the Watchman, as blood trickled down his face.

A moment later a second group of knights and pikemen came in the chamber, escorting an old man in a broad black hat. The old man walked leaning on a staff; two black birds clung to the shoulders of his long cape. The cape was fastened with an steel ornament shaped like a spiked wheel.

“Lieutenant! Why does he come before me unchained, garbed in no uniform, holding his stick? Were these things not taken from him at the door of his cell?”

“Sire!” stammered the lieutenant. “We found him now, not in his cell, but walking the corridors leading to the palace, singing a carol.”

“A carol?”

The stranger lifted his head. As the hat brim tilted up, Weston saw the man wore round disks of black glass before his eyes. The stranger sang, “Woe my child! Woe is me! My son was born while falling free! Cannot endure Earth gravity, he never shall come home, not he, but evermore, forevermore, shall fly the airless deep, fly free!”

“That is an old song,” said Weston.

“I am an old man,” the stranger replied.

“I think you are Valdemar,” said Weston.

“Then why do you not salute me?”

“Valdemar was a traitor!”

“Then why do you not embrace me as a brother, my fellow traitor?”

“What treason do you say I do?” asked Weston.

“The same as mine; you covet the ring. But I cannot use it; when the Chief Engineer Alberac learned I had let the Enemy aboard, he bound all the main circuits of the Computer to a single overall command; and wrought that command into the ring you hold, leaving all other systems on automatic. Lauren, the Ship’s Psychiatrist, and I, we traveled to the Engine Room, and we deceived poor Alberac and seized the ring. But Alberac had wrought more cunningly than I had guessed, and had programmed the ring, such that whenever it was used, any other member in the computer then would know from where and from whom the ring’s commands had come. The Enemy would bend all their forces toward its capture, were there any Enemy aboard. You see? The ultimate power of command, yet it can be used only by someone not afraid to die. Where to find such absolute devotion to one’s duty? Many years I searched the halls of this great ship, from the Ventilation Shafts where pirates aboard their giant kites fly the hurricanes from level to level, down to the swamps and stench of the Sewermen, who silently take the dead away, and, in the darkness, use secret arts to recycle all foul things to air and light again. Only one man I found had not deserted his post; Himdall, last of the Watch, and most faithful. Surrounded by the enemy, abandoned, alone, yet true to his duty. And look! Here is his son, equally as faithful as is he. Equally as doomed.”

Henwas called out, “Captain, I wish to report the Enemy Crown Ships are nigh to us, believing our world conquered and desolate, and are presently vulnerable to the discharge of our weapons!”

Several of the knights stared at the black-cloaked stranger in awe. “It is Valdemar!” said one. “Captain!” another whispered, and a third said, “Can it be he?”

One of the pikemen in the room was looking, not at Valdemar, but at Weston. This pikeman spoke out, saying, “My lord? You have the Command Ring?” But there was envy in his eyes, and he stepped toward the throne. But a knight, dressed all in ribbons and fine clothes, drew his rapier and touched that pikeman on the shoulder with the naked blade, so that the man was frightened, and stopped. The knight spoke to Weston, saying, “The rumor of the ring draws Alverin and all his tall, frail men. This old dribbler, if he is Valdemar, came also for its lure. I think the squat and surly dwarves who serve the fat Lord of Engineering cannot be far behind. The ring is surely cursed, my lord. It were better cast into a pit.”

A second knight, this a tall man from Cargobay, said, “My lord! The stranger rambles at length. He hopes for delay. Perhaps he is in league with Alverin’s people.”

The giant said to the Stranger, “Captain Valdemar. I am Carradock son of Cormac. My father died in the battle of Foresection Seven Hold, killing the great champion of the Enemy. My father was an Earthman, born beneath blue skies, and he did not dessert his post, even at his death. By his name, and in return for the vengeance I owe you for his death at the hands of the Enemy whom you allowed aboard, I ask this question: Why?”

“Broad question. Why what?”

“Why did you surrender to the Enemy, and allow them to land sixty armies into our halls?”

“Is that your full question? Are you not also going to ask why, on the day of the Last Burn, did our drive core suddenly accidentally ignite? Why the Enemy vessel was struck amidships with a line of flame a hundred miles long, sterilizing half their outer decks? Why, to this day, they have not landed a thousand armies more, and why can they barely keep the empire to our antispinward supplied with arms and food, and that with picket ships which, till recently, were kept at bay by our escort ship Revenge? Why they dare not bombard the Twilight into flaming ruin, for fear of striking dead their own armies? And, best of all, why does the Sirdar-Emperor aboard this ship, the son of the Leader of the Boarding Party, why has he reported to his masters that the ship is taken? This last question I can answer: the Destroyers would certainly annihilate this vessel with their great weapons were they to learn that we still lived, and fought, and still ruled the inner decks as far spinward as Waterstore and forward as Airbay and Greenlitfield.”

“Watchman,” said the giant, “if you will promise not to escape, I will release one arm of yours. And I will trust your promise, knowing that, of all orders and ranks of men, Watchmen are the most true and trustworthy; for the good of the ship relies on the honesty of their reports.”

“Why do you wish to let go my hand?” the Watchman asked.

“So that my own hand shall be free to salute my Captain, as he has asked.”