The Mammoth Book of Best New Science Fiction: 23rd Annual Collection (111 page)

“I agree,” said the Watchman. And the Carradock raised his huge hand and saluted Valdemar. There were tears in Carradock’s eyes.

Weston was livid. “Tell me the Word to unleash the power of the ring! Tell! Or I swear you die this moment, traitor!”

Valdemar said, “I know many secret words of high Command; words to open doors or trigger circuits which only open to my voice, doors leading down into secret corridors, accessways, and crawlspaces where no designers ever meant a human being to go. Every inch of all thousand decks of this vast ship I know, for it is mine, and I have never renounced my claim to it. I know words to darken lights, and still the airs to silence, or to send them rushing up again. But one word I do not know: the word which Himdall whispered to ring when he took it for his own.”

Now a group twelve of Computermen came into the chamber, carrying staves and bludgeons. The pikemen in silver and blue lowered their lances, but confusedly, some pointing at the Computermen, some at the black stranger, and one or two at the Watchman whom the giant stilled gripped. Three pikemen began walking toward the throne in a menacing fashion, but when the lieutenant called sharply out to them, these three hesitated, and stood uncertainly.

The Chief Computerman was near the silver doors. He waved his truncheon, and called out, “Weston! Give up the ring! It is false and has no power! Do not dream you can control the doors and lights and weapons of the world! Only the Computer can control these things, and it heeds only our holy order!”

“It that so indeed?” spoke the dark stranger. He pointed his staff at the silver doors and spoke a single harsh syllable. Immediately the silver doors swung shut, and there was a sound of great bolts slamming home. The Computerman jumped forward to avoid the doors. “No doubt,” hissed Valdemar, “these doors reacted of their own accord, from a wish to keep more riff-raff and sweeping of the corridors from blowing in to botch the brew.”

“Edgal! Sindal! Garvoris!” called out Weston to three of his knights. “Kill Valdemar upon this instant! If he knows not the word to command the ring, then he is not any use to me.”

“Other words I know,” Valdemar mildly replied. And he shouted; the chamber dimmed into utter darkness. During the moment as the lights failed, Henwas saw Valdemar leap and spin lightly into the air, surrounded by a great gray circle of cloak, and by the flutter of his two dark, shrieking birds. With one hand, as he leaped, Valdemar drew out a breathing tube from his collar and put it to his mouth and nose; his other hand drew a hidden sword-blade from his staff. The staff-end, which had been the scabbard, fell away, smoking. Valdemar spun, disemboweling one oncoming knight with a kick, hidden knives unfolding from his boot spurs. In one smooth motion it was done; and the two other knights rushing forward missed him with their pikes as he leaped, swirling his cloak about the head of one of them. While the man was tangled in the weighted net hidden below the cloak, Valdemar slashed him to death with a stroke of his shining sword, which he held under his palm, against his fore-arm, after the fashion of blind-fighters.

Then it was dark. There came a noise and shattering explosion of light. In the flare of the explosion, the corpse of the one knight standing near where the smoking cane-end had been abandoned could be briefly seen, headless, bloody, arms flailing as it fell. The hollow tube had contained some shrapnel which had been scattered among the pikemen and guards. Their chests and faces were bloody. Screams were starting. One man was blubbering like a baby. Henwas heard a hiss, smelled the fetid, dizzying smell of poisonous gas radiating from the corner of the chamber where Valdemar had been.

All was noise, screams, horn-calls, darkness, confusion, the stench of blood, the smell of poison.

Henwas was awed by the destruction. Was the Captain truly blind?

There was another flare of light; the lieutenant stood with an illegal hand-weapon blazing in his fist, his face blood-red, contorted with murderous wrath, he was shouting, “Suffer not to live who breaks the weapon code! Who kills the Ship kills all . . .” The lieutenant had been driven beyond all reason by the traitor-captain’s use of poisons and explosives, which could damage air filters and bulkhead seals; he reckoned nothing for the illegality of his own weapon.

The ornament which Valdemar had used as a cloak-pin spun shining out of the darkness and struck the lieutenant’s hand. The disk was razor-sharp; it severed the lieutenant’s fingers. The hand-weapon fell. Again it was dark.

Weston shouted, “Carradock! Save the Watchman . . .” and then he cried out in great pain, having betrayed his location by his shout.

Someone struck at Henwas with a bludgeon; with his free hand (for the other was still gripped by the giant) Henwas reached out and seized the arm wielding the bludgeon, and the bones broke under the strength of his fingers. At first, he was amazed and angered, for he did not think that any in that chamber would risk his harm; but under hand he felt the rough-spun cloth of a Computerman.

Then the giant was dragging him to one side. Henwas heard a clash of blades, a coarse cry, where he had just been standing. Now the giant held him still.

By some odor or noise or pressure close at hand, Henwas felt an intuition the Valdemar was nearby, silent in the darkness.

The giant still had him by one arm; but, even so, Henwas did not move or speak, for fear of someone hearing. There was a ruckus in the blackness all around them, the clash of arms. Henwas suspected that the Computermen or the pikemen were in rebellion, and thought, under cover of darkness and confusion, to steal the ring.

Valdemar’s voice slithered out of the blackness: “Carradock, I ask you, by your ancient oaths, now to be obedient to me, and bring the Watchman to the throne where Weston is. We will seize the ring. When you call to him, he will answer, thinking you loyal.”

Henwas was amazed that any man who used explosives aboard the Ship could say words like “oath” and “loyalty” and not be choked. But he feared a coming tragedy; Carradock and Valdemar both were resolute, brave men. He knew the giant would not break fealty with Weston, who, however unworthy, was his lord. He knew as well that Valdemar, who might admire the giant, would not hesitate an instant to cheat, deceive or murder him, the moment that such crimes became useful to his grand design.

The giant made no noise. Henwas was not surprised.

Valdemar spoke again: “Unfortunate that you must betray Weston, who is your lord, but the mission goals require it. Fret not; treason is only bitter at first. The soul grows easily accustomed . . .”

Carradock lashed the bayonet of his weapon through the air toward the voice. He struck nothing. By some trick or slight, Valdemar had made his voice seem to come from where it was not.

“Henwas!” Valdemar whispered, sounding very near. “Call out, that I may hear where the giant stands, and slay him.”

But Henwas did not want the giant to die, and did not answer. “Henwas, Carradock! Both of you have disobeyed my direct command in time of war; for this I instantly condemn you. I now release the deadly vapor. Breath, and perish . . .”

Henwas knew this was some feint to compel them to move or act, so he doubted, and stayed still; and perhaps the giant suspected this a ruse as well, but staked no chance on it.

Carradock discharged his weapon straight up into the air. In the momentary mussel-flare, Valdemar could be seen, crouching like a great black bat near the floor, white blade in his hand, point poised across his back like the sting of a scorpion.

The giant dropped the barrel of his weapon and fired again. Valdemar flopped and fell limply. The giant fired many times.

At that moment, the great gold doors behind the throne opened a crack. There was a weak light from the Main Bridge beyond, dusky blue service-lights said to burn forever. Silhouetting against that light, Henwas could see the staggering figure of Acting Captain Weston, who was pierced and bleeding.

The slim crack of light from the door, the huddled figure of Valdemar could be seen, bleeding terribly. “Accept my surrender,” whispered Valdemar, “for I am wounded unto death.”

The giant stepped forward. “I repent, that when finally I had found a man worth serving, the true Captain from the young days of the world, he sullied his hands with unlawful weapons. Your surrender I accept, for memory of the nobility once you had.” A pause, then: “Can you hear me?”

And when he bent over the huddled figure, Valdemar, hearing the sound of his voice, flung up his hand and threw a poisoned dagger into the open mouth of the giant, piercing the roof of his mouth.

“Nothing is unlawful, nothing noble in war!” Valdemar screamed in anger.

The white-haired and ancient giant staggered forward and fell onto the supine body of Captain Valdemar, crushing him down. And perhaps the giant, falling, had struck down with his knife or hands, for the body of Valdemar was crushed and was not seen to move again.

As the giant fell, Valdemar cried a single word of command and then was silent.

The moment the giant had unhanded him, Henwas bounded across the chamber toward Weston. A knight rose up before him, like a ghost in the gloom, brandishing a rapier; but Henwas, scarred by radiation, knew no fear, came forward, was stabbed in the shoulder painfully, but struck in the knight’s skull with his fist.

He nearly had his hands on the wounded Weston, who, sobbing, was crawling through the golden doors into the vast dark chamber beyond, when a pike-stroke from behind Henwas cut into the muscles of his leg and toppled him. In a moment, the pikeman had him by the hair, and was pressing a dirk against his throat, even as Henwas’ hands closed around the bracelet-ringed ankle of Weston’s jeweled boot.

Weston drew a bloody hand out from underneath his gem-studded coat. “This is my death-wound,” he panted, staring in horror at the heart’s blood in his palm, “I am slain . . .”

Meanwhile, Valdemar’s last spoken word had its effect. There was a noise like that of bolts being drawn back and of doors opening; and the pictures which lined the walls swung free in their frames, and from half a dozen secret doors, lights and trumpet-noise issued forth.

Into the chamber from these secret doors came suddenly the tall pale men of Overdeck, garbed all in green, some with breastplates and helms of polished steel, carrying bows and tall spears and slim straight swords.

The knights of the above-world were tall and fair and terrible to look upon, and they were singing their war-song. Not one of them was pock-marked, or scarred, or showed any sign of the radiation diseases which those who live on lower decks, to their sorrow, know only too well. Before them, came the white starbanner of Alverin.

Many carried bows and cross-bows, for, although the Over-men are weaker in their legs and bodies than are other men, their arms are sinewy and their eyes are keen.

Alverin himself came forth, his uniform as green as leaves, and from his wide shoulders hung one of the fair white winged cloaks those who live at the Axis of the world use to steer themselves in flight. His hair was as yellow as the corn his people grow in Greenhold; his eyes were blue and bright, and shone with a light of stern command.

Now Alverin raised his straight slim sword and called upon those within the chamber to surrender, saying, “Whoso lays down his arms, shall be spared, and set free, I vow, suffering no hurt nor any dishonor!”

Because the rumor of Alverin’s honesty and clemency was so well known, the knights and pikemen in that chamber instantly threw down their swords and pole-arms. None had heart to fight, seeing their leader, Weston, lay swooning with is life blood bubbling out of him. The weapons fell ringing to the chamber floor.

But one of the Computermen seized up an pike and, with a terrible cry, cast it straight into Alverin’s breast. Alverin staggered backward, pierced through the heart and lungs. In that same instant of time, the man who had cast the pike was stricken through his arm by three arrows. Yet these shots were not ill-aimed; for Alverin’s men, by custom, spoke before they struck, wounded rather than slew.

Alverin drew the pike-head out from his bloody chest and wiped the blood away. The wound closed up into a scar and then Alverin’s chest grew fair and smooth again. He cast the bloody pike aside. “I am an Earthman; I was born beneath blue sky!” he called out. To the wounded man, he said, “The knowledge of the men who made this entire world have made me as I am, and I am not to be slain by your small weapons.” And he ordered his physician to tend to the wounded among the enemy, even the man who had smitten him.

Alverin turned. He saw Valdemar laying motionless, his body crushed beneath the fallen giant. “So,” Alverin whispered, “these secret paths you showed to us were not a trap. Did you play us true, this once, old liar? If so, where is the ring?”

Now he turned again. In the threshold of the golden doors leading to the Main Bridge, a pikeman still crouched above Henwas the Watchman, a steady knife still touching the prone man’s throat. Henwas was bleeding at the shoulder and the leg, and yet his face was remote and calm, as if no wound nor pain could trouble him.

Alverin stepped forward till he could see, laying in the shadow of the door, dying, Acting Captain Weston II, and, in his bloodstained hand, the ring.

Beyond was the Bridge, a large dimly lit cathedral of a space, surrounded on all sides by the darkened screens of the Computer.

Weston croaked, “Pikeman. Slit the Watchman’s throat if the rebel-king steps forward one step more.”