The Rebel of Rhada (8 page)

“You said ‘a death warrant for Nyor,’ Rebel,” Mariana said. “What do you mean by that?”

Kier shook his head.

“The Questioner, Queen?” Landro asked, giggling eagerly.

“Not yet.” Mariana’s eyes rested speculatively on the Rhadan. “But we
will
know, Rebel. One way or another.”

Kier thought of the kings on Tallan’s world. He had imagined that he might bring them to their senses with assurances of redress from The Magnifico’s son. Now that hope was dead with the boy. What remained was tyranny on the one hand, bloody war on the other. And torture for himself if he remained silent. A bitter choice for a star-voyaging warman.

“The Empire could not be ruled by a child,” Mariana said, guessing his thoughts.

“It could have been,” Kier said, “by a boy well served.” He regarded Landro contemptuously. “Well served by honest men.”

Mariana smiled. “You are an idealist then, Rebel. No, the troops are loyal to me.”

“You’ve bought them, Mariana. But when did bought men ever stay bought? And what do you have, really? The Vegans.”

“Tell me what you meant, Rebel, when you spoke of a death warrant for Nyor.”

“The dynasty was new, Mariana, and Torquas too young to rule unless he was well served. But it was the only way we knew to try to keep the peace-- You have destroyed all that with your bedroom rebellion. You may have me, but what of all the others? The Centauri, the Lyri, the men of Kalgan and Aldebaran and Deneb and Altair and a hundred other systems? What good will your fifty thousand Vegans be against them?”

Mariana said, “Say more, Rebel.”

“No more. It’s done now. Everything we fought for at Karma and a dozen other places is finished.”

Mariana moved closer to Kier. He thought:
She is beautiful, the way a tree of ice is beautiful. Intelligent, ambitious, cruel. To have married her to a boy was The Magnifico’s disastrous mistake, the act that would bring the young Empire crashing down.

She said, “You have fifteen starships, Kier. And twenty thousand warmen--Rhadans, the best in the Empire. Give them to me. Serve the Empire as you always have. I do not want to destroy the Rim worlds, but if I must, I will. You could prevent it, Kier of Rhada.”

Kier smiled bleakly. Mariana’s ambition was royal enough. But war would not start on the Rim. It would begin here, on Earth, as the disaffected star kings blackened the capital with fire and sword. And the Rhad would be among them, led by Willim of Astraris, burning and killing to avenge their warleader Kier--dead in the hands of Mariana’s Questioner. That, he thought resignedly, was the way it would be. The Rhad were a melancholy race, and Kier felt the weight of the dour centuries in his heart, so it jarred him to hear Mariana’s laughter.

“Oh, you out-worlders,” she said. “What an ancient breed you are! Glamiss used to say, ‘The Rhad see doom beyond every hill.’ Is it because you live so far away, Rebel?

Out on the edge of the sky where there are no stars to see in the night? Where is your ambition, you brave captain? I’m offering you the Inner Worlds if you are man enough to take them!”

“You mean treacherous enough,” Kier said.

Now Landro laughed. “You see, Queen? He fought at Karma, and he still dreams of his great king. There’s only one way with the Rhad.”

Mariana turned for a moment to look through the window at the night falling over the city of Nyor. “Glamiss is dead, Kier. The times are changing. Will you speak?”

Kier shook his head.

“I have sent the Vykan guard across the river into Jersey. There are no Floridans in the tower. The city is in the hands of the Veg. In the morning we will take your star-ship. What choice have you, Rebel?”

Kier thought of Kalin and breathed a silent prayer to the beatified Emeric.

Mariana turned and looked coldly at him. “One last time, Kier. Think carefully.”

“You will never hold what you have stolen, Mariana. This I know,” Kier said.

She turned away angrily, her patience at an end. She snapped out a command, and four Vegan Imperials stepped into the room and saluted her. “Take him to the Questioner,” she said.

The guards moved Kier to the door. Mariana said, “Good-by, Rebel. We won’t meet again.”

When they had gone, Mariana turned to Landro. “Find out what he knows of Sarissa.”

“What can he know?”

Mariana said impatiently. “The issue is still in doubt there.”

“You don’t trust the cyborg?”

Mariana’s eyes narrowed as she regarded the Vegan. “Far more than I’d trust any man,” she said.

Landro inclined his head. There was a touch of mockery in his manner. “Then, Queen, you will be interested in my latest news.”

“You’ve had word from Sarissa? Why wasn’t I told at once?” Her lovely face was set in anger.

“There was no time. Until now, Queen.”

“What is it, then?”

“It’s Kelber,” said Landro, smirking foolishly.

Mariana waited, reining her impatience and anger. In time, Landro would have to be taught a lesson. When all this was done, her lover would have outlived his usefulness.

“A Sarissan starship landed in Connecticut late this afternoon. A courier arrived only an hour ago.”

“From the cyborg?”

“Please. From the Sarissan star king,” Landro said. “It seems that there has been a fire in the city of Sardis. The entire Street of Night was destroyed.”

“And Kelber?”

“Dead, Queen.”

Mariana walked swiftly to the window and stood in thoughtful silence. Full night had fallen over Nyor. The torchlights of the watch flickered in the rainy darkness. “You think the cyborg killed him,” she said finally.

“Who can say, Queen?”

Mariana turned, a decision made. “All right. You leave for Sarissa tonight. Within the hour. Tallan can’t be left alone.”

“As you command, love,” Landro said.

“Why do you look like that?” Mariana asked irritably.

“I was only thinking that before you learned of Kelber’s death, you spoke of ‘the cyborg.’ But now that you suspect an act of murder, it’s become ‘Tallan,’ as though he were a man.” Landro fidgeted nervously with the silver clasps in his hair and asked in an arch voice, “So who can you trust now, my queen?”

The maneuvering of starships at low speeds and in atmosphere requires the coordinated efforts of a control team specially trained in Ionics, Planetary Magnetic Effects, and Pilotage. In the absence of such rated personnel, close maneuvering at low levels should not be attempted.

Golden Age fragment found at Station One, Astraris

To study, to learn, to safeguard that which is holy, and above all, to dare: that is the duty of a Navigator.

Attributed to Emeric of Rhada, Grand Master of Navigators,
early Second Stellar Empire period

Kalin, the Navigator, stood in the entry valve of the Rhadan starship and watched the swift and orderly withdrawal of the last warmen of the perimeter guard. As the horses padded aboard, he could hear them complaining at a new confinement. They were restless because there had been no battle with their armored cousins of Vega.

The arbalests had been stowed, and Nevus paced the landing ground, urging the warmen to greater speed and more silence. Through the rainy darkness Kalin could see the cooking fires of the Imperials and, beyond that, barely visible in the gloomy night, the few torchlights of Nyor.

The young priest-Navigator stood tensely, waiting moment by moment for the alarm that must surely come from the Imperial pickets when they discovered the swift and secret withdrawal of the Rhadans. But there was no sound but the soft padding of the disgruntled war horses and an occasional soft chink of iron as a weapon touched against harness. The rain and the darkness were covering the maneuver perfectly, as Kier had foreseen that they would.

The last troopers filed through into the interior of the starship, and Kalin rubbed his sweating palms against the coarse cloth of his robe. Underneath he could feel the unyielding scales of god-metal that protected him from neck to thigh.

Now Nevus stepped through the valve and stood for a moment looking back at the darkness where the Imperials rested around their fires.

“Well, it worked the way he said it would,” the old warrior said. “At least so far. Is it time, priest?”

“As nearly as can be figured without the stars to see,” Kalin said.

Nevus regarded him unsmilingly but not unkindly. “Anxious, boy?”

Kalin was about to reply with some unctuous remark from the dogma but thought better of it. “Yes,” he said. “I don’t know if I am good enough, General.”

“He
thinks you are,” Nevus replied. “The Rhad don’t fail.”

Kalin nodded, lips compressed. He was thinking of the darkness and the search through the rainy air for the spire. But the ship’s own glow would give some light. His mind abandoned anxiety, and he concerned himself with the technical problems of pilotage involved. He drew a deep breath and tried to look soldierly.
If Kier thinks I can do it,
he thought,
then I must.
“We will start now,” he said.

Kalin entered the sacred part of the starship, stepped swiftly over the coaming into the control room, and made a perfunctory sign of the Star in the air. The two novices already at their posts before the banks of ancient instrument panels looked up, acknowledged the priest-Navigator’s blessing, and stood by for orders.

Their faces were pale under the cowls. Kalin felt a sudden decisive confidence invade his spirit. He wondered briefly if it was the shade of his beatified ancestor Emeric coming to aid him in his moment of trial. If so, he was well served. It was said that no finer pilot of starships had ever lived than Emeric of Rhada.

“Brother John,” Kalin said. “Close the valve.”

“Yes, First Pilot,” the novice replied respectfully, using the holy title that was never used in the hearing of unconsecrated persons.

“Brother Yakob, start the power sequence.”

The two novices, their confidence increased by having something familiar and important to do, bent to their Sacred tasks.

In this holiest part of the ship, the mysterious force “electricity” still lived. Kalin took his position in the pilot’s couch and touched the switches that activated the transparent cone covering the control room. As his hands moved in the prescribed passes over the panel, he automatically recited the appropriate prayers. “Great is the power of Almighty God who lives between the stars and gives us the power to see.” The walls seemed to dissolve, and the control room became an island floating in space above the rubbled landing ground at the south end of the great Tel-Manhat. Through the rain, in the middle distance, Kalin could see the shadowy shapes of the Imperials moving across the fires. The ground around the ship reflected a growing radiance as the power sequence progressed, and surely now the Vegans were discovering that the starship was preparing to depart.

“Energy Level One, blessed be the Name,” Brother Yakob intoned.

“Starship in all respects ready for flight, First Pilot,” Brother John reported.

“Energy Two,” Kalin ordered.

“Energy Two sequence begun,” Brother Yakob said.

The light around the ship grew brighter, the air ionizing so that the falling raindrops seemed bits of molten violet. Through the aurora Kalin could see signal torches being waved in the Imperial ranks. Already a squadron of mounted Vegans was plunging across the uneven ground toward the starship, but they could only mill about in mingled anger and fear, for the ship was sealed and no power their world knew could open it.

“Energy Two, First Pilot,” said Brother Yakob.

“Maneuver sequence, hallowed be the Spirit,” Kalin commanded.

“Begun, for the glory of the Lord,” Brother John responded.

Kalin could feel the great starship coming to life beneath him, all around him. For the young priest, this was the holiest and most exalting of moments, as the eternal power of the most sacred objects in the universe responded to his touch. There was an ancient prayer, a fragment of one of the holiest books preserved by the order, that Kalin always spoke silently at such a moment: a private devotion, not prescribed by the dogma, but a beautiful phrase that must surely have been recorded by the Dawn Men for the instant when flight began. Kalin closed his eyes and said inaudibly, “Arise my love, arise and come away with me--” The star-ship’s immense weight rode the planet’s magnetic lines of force and lifted from the depression it had made in the earth of the tel. It seemed to float on the radiance of the wet, shining air.

Only meters below the massive curve of the keel, the now thoroughly aroused Imperials milled in angry frustration. One or two of the more daring launched throwing spears and an occasional arrow at the rising colossus, but these were impious acts and the missiles fell back uselessly. Some of the troopers retreated from them in superstitious dread of the radiance that clung to them for a time only to fade as the vessel rose higher still into the rainy night.

The starship floated upward above the upturned faces of the Imperial officers who now were terrified of the report they must give to the warleader Landro. The glow of ionization grew dimmer as the ship’s altitude increased. At some six hundred meters the great ship reached the cloud layer, and now those below could only see a faint violet light moving within the low mists. But the radiance did not fade away to nothing as the ship reached for space. Instead, it lingered above the tel, hovering within the cloud, fading for moments at a time as the rain fell harder, then reappearing as the wind opened patches of darkness in the air.

Then slowly, almost imperceptibly, the light moved northward toward the city.

During the political convulsions that shook the capital during the uprisings of the early Second Stellar Empire period, one loyalty remained unquestioned. This was the devotion of the Vykan soldiery to the persons of the royal family.

Nv. Julianus Mullerium,
The Age of the Star Kings,
middle Second Stellar Empire period