The Navigator of Rhada (20 page)

The words were both frightening and soothing to Kynan. He could feel the sheltering arms of the brotherhood of the Order enfolding him, sustaining him.

“History is a mighty stream, my son. It flows through time in mysterious ways known only to God and his holy Star. But there are choices to be made, changes that even mere men can sometimes, in God’s great mercy, affect in history’s flow. Do you understand that, Kynan?” He maintained his grip on Kynan’s arm and went on, not waiting for an answer to his rhetorical question. “Occasionally, once in generations, there is a confluence of forces, a time of decision. In those times there is a nexus in which all change--all possibility of
different
history--is concentrated in one event--in one
individual
.”

He stopped before the star-blazoned door to the starship’s bridge. Kynan had never seen such a door as this in a starship. It was something unknown in the construction of all the vessels in which he had served. The implication was enormous, staggering. This was a
new
thing, something
added
to the ancient, immortal vessels. To his young mind it was blasphemy, yet if it was countenanced here on the starship of the Five, it could not be unholy. The presence of the door and the symbol meant that the Order itself had rebuilt and modified a starship. It was incredible but true.

But what the Tactician said next was an even greater shock to Kynan.

“Twenty years ago such an event occurred, such a nexus was created.
You are such a nexus of power, Nav Kynan.”
Before Kynan could react to that astonishing statement, the Tactician had swung open the door to the control room, and Kynan faced the four remaining members of the Five.

The priest who seemed the oldest of the group rose and came forward. “I am the Theologian, Nav Kynan.” The ghost of a smile touched the withered lips. “My colleagues sometimes call me the Preacher.”

Kynan could only nod his head. He was unable to contain or control his spinning thoughts.

“Are you devout, my son? Are you a true son of the Order?”

“I believe so, Father,” Kynan replied. His throat felt dry, and his voice sounded hoarse and unsteady.

“That is good. Because what you must do will demand all your devotion, all your ability to withstand temptation.” The Tactician said, “That is the Psychologist. That is the Logician. They are often at odds, just as the Preacher and I are. It is understood that this is so, for what we plan for the Order is never simple, and all voices must be heard before the Grand Master acts. And
that
is the Technician. Perhaps he can ease your pain.”

Kynan now looked about in wonder to see that
many
new things had been incorporated into this starship. The bridge was filled with unfamiliar equipment, banks of it. “I don’t understand you, Father,” he said.

“I told you that you were a nexus, Kynan. This means that, since birth, you have been watched and cared for by the Order. Long before you finished your cadetship on Gonlan, you were a ward of the Navigators. It was the Order who brought you to Kreon--a true son of the faith. It was the Order who educated and trained you. You have been watched every day of your twenty years, Kynan-- watched and guided and protected.”

Kynan regarded the Tactician with an expression of complete confusion. The older man smiled and nodded. “It is so, my son. Believe it.” The smile faded. “Days ago the Royal Vulk of Rhada came near to discovering how this was done--and more dangerously,
why.
Since that time you have been suffering great pain, is that not so?”

“Yes, Father,” Kynan said wonderingly.

“He came near to breaking your conditioning. He probed deeply in a kind of Triad--but with a much stronger mind- touch. What remained were the physical implants.”

“The what?” Uncomprehending, Kynan frowned.

The Tactician said, “Show him.”

The man known as the Technician walked to a machine and made an adjustment. Instantly, the throbbing ache in Kynan’s skull ceased. For a moment he found it impossible to grasp the immense implications of what had happened in that moment.

He pushed off his cowl and steel cap. The casque clattered, rolling on the deck. Kynan pressed his fingertips to his head; he was trembling.

“Surgical implants?”
he said raspingly.

“Since five days after your birth,” the Technician said calmly. “They were made on the starship carrying you to Gonlan from Earth.”

“As the plan progressed,” the Tactician went on inexorably, “we found that we would need an amplifier near you. The choice was Janessa. She underwent an appendectomy at Star Field a year ago. She, too, was implanted.”

The room seemed to rock around Kynan. He imagined tendrils of invisible wire lacing through his brain, through the soft pulpy gray of it, like metal veins and arteries--
controlling
him--like a
cyborg
--and they did something almost as bad to Janessa, to
Janessa
-- “My God,” he breathed. “Oh, my
God!”

This, then, was the source of the wild dreams, the spinning galaxies, the crown of Earth--all of it . . .

His stomach churned with sickness. He clutched his violated skull with clawed fingers as though to tear the implants out with his nails.

“We would not have taken such liberties with a fellow human being, my son,” the Tactician went on relentlessly, “but for your vital importance to the Empire and the Order. Your life has been our guarantee of survival--of
triumph
--in a hostile universe. And now we must enforce that guarantee. If you are a puppet--remember you are a puppet of the
Order,
of God, of the holy Star. Cling fast to your faith, my son--”

“My faith--” Kynan said in a voice like death. “My faith--”

“It has come to pass, my son, that the plan created so long ago--on the occasion of your birth, to be exact--
must
now go forward. And now, you shall see
how
and
why.”
The Tactician strode to the blazoned door. The Preacher threw up his hands in protest. “By the holy Star, brother! Not here! You aren’t bringing him here? He is unconsecrated!”

Kynan scarcely heard.
Who
was unconsecrated? And what did it matter? What did it matter now?

“Many things must change tonight, brothers,” the Tactician said stonily. He strode to the door and swung it open.

Kynan raised his haunted eyes. There was a movement in the open archway.

The Tactician stepped forward holding the arm of a young man. To Kynan, it was the shock of looking into a mirror.

To Torquas the Poet, it was a supernatural horror that left him whimpering and pleading to be forgiven sins even he, in his endless inventiveness, could never have committed.

The twin sons of Torquas XII, Galacton,
the
Star King of the Galaxy, Hereditary Warleader of Vyka, and a dozen more resounding titles, had met at last.

How, then, may men rule themselves, Grand Master?

The legends say there is the rule of
none,
the rule of
one,
the rule of
some,
and the rule of
all.
Autocracy is better than anarchy and nihilism. Oligarchy is better than dictatorship. But the best is democracy. However, do not ask me how democracy comes, brothers. I do not know.

Emeric of Rhada, Grand Master of Navigators,
The Dialogues,
early Second Stellar Empire period

In line astern, the first elements of the advance squadron from Nyor approached the sanctuary. They came at low level, across the land and into the glare of the rising sun of Aurora.

And on the crest of the landward hills, another formation, Navigators carrying green fronds and leading a single mounted man, made a procession of somber black against the dun-colored flank of the Auroran land. Their chanting carried on the morning air. They moved slowly, as all religious processions do. At the head of the line four princes of the Order marched in the dust. Behind them rode a man on a war mare. He was dressed in homespun, but on his brow rested the circlet, jeweled with sunbursts, of
the
King.

Near the rear of the holy procession walked Janessa and Baltus, the warlock. They had been cowled and robed, and they went now under gentle guard, surrounded by chanting Navigators.

Janessa felt a strange premonition. The Navigators had appeared out of the early morning darkness, and they had taken her and Baltus to a place in the forest and draped them both in Navigator’s robes. All of this had been done in silence, and no one would answer her questions. Where was Kynan? Whence came all these cowled men? And why did they walk in humble religious procession now toward that holy place her grandfather had ceded so long ago to the Order?

“Baltus,” the girl said, “I’m frightened. Where is Kynan?”

The old warlock squeezed her arm and said nothing. Far ahead in the procession she could see Skua. And on her back was a man in homespun. He was far off and rode facing away from her. Kynan? But on his dark head rested the gemmed crown of the Galacton. She could see the morning light striking spears of brilliance from the jewels.

“Baltus--
what’s happening?”

“Look,” the warlock said. He was watching the sky, and now she could see the five starships coming on slowly, the sunlight bright on the Imperial blazon on their prows.

Except for the chanting, there was no sound in the still morning. All around her, the priests walked with downcast eyes, their faces hidden by their cowls. She could smell the dusty warmth of their bodies and the bitter tang of their oiled mail. They were armored, but unarmed, and they held the green fronds with their folded arms across their chests.

Against the rising sun, the sanctuary was a jumble of walled towers, domes, and strangely formed antennas. The waters of the Great Inland Sea lay flat as a bowl of molten silver.

The girl raised her eyes to the sky to watch the majestic approach of the leading starship. In these surroundings, it was an awe-inspiring sight. The sunlight shimmered down the kilometer-long hull as it turned toward the center of the walled sanctuary. She could see the valve beginning to dilate, and within she could make out the ranks of armed men.

She looked again toward the enclave and noted the almost motionless figures of black-clad Navigators on the battlements. They seemed to be kneeling in prayer, although some of them stood at the bases of the strange metal projections extending above the ancient stone walls. It was difficult to be certain, but against the rising sun there seemed to be a wavelike distortion in the air around the sanctuary.

She touched Baltus on the sleeve and was about to ask him to explain what it was that she was seeing when the prow of the leading starship seemed to penetrate the peculiar radiance.

The great vessel was moving at a height of less than one hundred meters, and it was traveling slowly. But as the ship entered the distorted air, the bow dipped sharply toward the ground.

Janessa could see the momentary confusion in the open valve as the deck canted sharply under the gathered war- men’s feet. It seemed to her that the starship checked, tried to reverse course. But the inertia of its great mass carried it forward, and in an instant it ceased to be a starship at all. The magical power that had held the ancient vessel from the earth of a thousand planets and had driven it at godlike speed between the stars seemed to die. The prow struck the hard soil outside the sanctuary battlements, crumpled as though it were paper. The long, graceful shape caved in, bulged, collapsed. Then the rest of the hull struck with a dull
crumping
sound. Tears appeared in the shining metal flanks. Explosions ripped pieces of metal high into the air. Men and pieces of men spun horribly against the sky. The spine of the vast ship broke. Shining metal girders appeared for an instant and then vanished in the rising cloud of dust and debris. She could hear, distantly, the rumble of fire and the screams of dying men. She turned, gasping, and buried her head in the warlock’s chest, fighting not to be sick.

To Kynan the Navigator, sitting on Skua’s broad back, wearing the circlet of power on his head and the false identity of his brother the Galacton, the crash of the great starship was like an awakening.

Since the confrontation with Torquas in the starship of the Five, he had been like a man in a dream. The ideals of a lifetime had been badly mauled by the discovery of the ruthlessness with which he had been used. Shocked, dismayed, overborne by the cold drive to power of the old princes of the Order, he had scarcely had time to consider the full implications of the scheme they referred to as “the
plan.”

To serve God and the Order had been his purpose in life. Now he found himself cast in the role of central figure in a monstrous impersonation, required to
become
Torquas--a Galacton forever in the debt and power of the Order. The boldness and cold calculation of the Five’s
coup
was its strength. Given Torquas the Poet’s weakness and his own inability to protest, the plan could change the course of history. The Order and the Empire, without the consent of the people--without even their knowledge-- would become one power: implacable, indestructible, perhaps immortal.

It was these thoughts that filled the young Navigator’s mind on the processional journey toward the sanctuary. But the sudden, shocking death of the Vegan starship jolted Kynan more than even he could know. For the first time in memory, Navigators had killed Navigators. The crew of the starship, together with most of the troops on board, had died a sudden and violent death.

Kynan was shaken with an unfamiliar rage at the brutal pragmatism of the mighty. Where were the ideals of his beloved Order? Where were the lofty precepts he had been taught in the Theocracy?