The Queen of Space, page 12
“Do you know where?”
“Affirmative, sir. Trajectory computed. Point of indicated origin coincides with position of another starcraft, arriving from direction of nebular core.”
“Was the Legion craft destroyed?”
“Uncertain, sir. No signal received since instant of impact.”
“One point for us.” Larron nodded, with a sharp look at Jil. “I doubt that your Legion friends will be troubling us again.”
“But—the other mortal craft?” Diamondwall blinked at him. “Drillers or flashers or whatever frightful things? If they’re still cruising ahead of us, armed with such a fearful weapon—”
“Up to now they’re fighting for us.” Larron grinned. “We’ll proceed to land at Freeholm.”
“To be slaughtered there? Like bugs beneath a blessed boot?”
“Better there than here.” Larron shrugged. “Down at Freeholm, we’ll be better hidden. We’ll keep signal silence. Hope they don’t detect us.”
They came down to Freeholm.
Jil walked down the ramp into a dense ice fog. Chilled steam from the jets, it boiled down around her, hiding everything. The bite of it took her breath, and she had to wait for it to rise and clear before she could see their landing place, or even the soaring mirror tower of the hull.
What the lifting fog uncovered was a long sandstone shelf, naked except for scattered clumps of rust-colored leatherweed. Bare yellow cliffs climbed behind it toward the high glare of the ice plateau and the sun’s frigid dazzle. Stony slopes below them tumbled down into a yawning canyon that looked hundreds of kilometers across and dozens deep, its hazy floor patched with dull-red weed.
Searching for a building, she found nothing at all until Larron blew piercing notes from a sonic key to open a doorway into the sandstone. It was dark at first, the air inside stale and cold, but lights came on and ventilators began to hum. Larron led them on into a high-arched rock-hewn hall.
“A cunning hideout.” Puffing as he waddled, Diamondwall swung to squint about him. “But the starcraft’s still outside, a mortal lightning rod to draw the fire of that fearful gun.”
“No hazard,” Larron said. “We’ll be moving the craft as soon as she’s unloaded. To a concealed silo above us on the icecap. Two hundred kilometers away. If the cliffdrillers come back, they can eat the craft and welcome. We won’t be needing it again. Freeholm itself was built with minimal use of metal, and that buried deep.”
He turned and strode to Jil.
“Like it?” His great arm crushed her to him, and the ringing power of his voice recalled the spell of his sensorion. “Our own empire!”
“Yours, maybe.” She turned her lips from his, trying to resist her own responsive urge. “But I’m afraid not for long. Not with the Legion and the invaders already hunting us.”
“Listen, Jil.” His genial boom had become a murmur of intimate caress. “There is a storm around us, on a course we can’t predict. But some storms have eyes. Small islands of calm, untouched by fury raging all around them. If the invaders pass us by, Freeholm can be an isle of joy for us.
“Of love, Jil—”
“But if they find us—”
He chuckled, his craggy face oddly unconcerned.
“Truly, Jil, we needn’t care. Because there’d be nothing we can do. Knowing you, I know you want to fight. We’re weaponless and powerless. The storm’s beyond our stopping. Yet, here in its eye, we may have the best refuge of all.”
The clones around them had stopped silently to wait. Most of them still smiled at him with benign devotion, but the nearest one peered at her more sharply.
He crushed her against him.
“I know our little universe isn’t quite what you came out looking for.” His gentle murmur was not too low for the attentive clones to hear. “But, Jil! Please don’t hate it. Or me! Every day I thank my luck for the chain of chance that brought you to me.”
“I don’t think your clones are quite so delighted.”
“If that’s all, never fret!” He chuckled again. “Here, Jil, my wish will be the law.”
Letting her pull away, he strode on into the deep-dug retreat. Nearly all the clones followed, clustering closer, but two stayed with Jil. Their smiles no longer quite so warm, they escorted her down a branching tunnel to the suite they said would be hers.
She invited them inside.
“If you don’t mind, there’s a question I’ve wanted to ask.” She studied their golden perfection, trying to guess how totally Larron owned them. “Don’t you ever wish you were free?”
They looked bewildered.
“Liberated from your duty to the captain?” she said. “Free to find lives of your own?”
“Miss Gyrel!” Only the nearer spoke, but both nude forms had stiffened with indignation. “Certainly we do not. He created us to serve him. His total happiness is all we ever seek.”
“Suppose—” Uneasy with them, she hesitated. “Suppose he loved someone else?”
“No!” They spoke together vehemently. “That could not be,” the nearer added, looking hard at her. “Because we were made to fit his wishes. No other will ever be. And we must ask you not to speak of that again.”
“I won’t.”
Uneasier than ever, she let them show her the apartment. Three long rooms, equipped with an elegance that astonished her. The heavy tapestries glowed with luminous scenes from Larron’s sensorion. In image after image, a magnificent red-bearded giant battled wind and wave and volcano, climbing at last on shining wings into high and open space. There were no windows, but one wide wall was a holo tank that commanded vast vistas from the conning dome above.
Freeholm ran on local time, they told her. The planet’s day was nearly thirty hours, but she would soon become accustomed to it. It was sunset now, and her dinner would be served here in her suite.
She ate alone when it came, unhappily. The food and wine may have been superb, but the triumphant giant striding through the heroic tapestries around her was too clearly Larron. She was racked with her hot revolt against his appeal, furious with herself for feeling so eager to see him again.
The clones came back to take the serving cart away and left her alone again. The planet’s night dragged on forever. Unable to sleep, she watched the holo tank. Moonless night had fallen, but spotlights blazed on a gang of clones unloading the Hedonian.
In bright, tight-fitted cosmonalls, they were graceful as dancers. The tank brought no sound. It seemed to her that they toiled in joyous unison, controlled by their total devotion to Larron and serenely unaware that anything could ever change.
She felt a pang of envy for them.
The last bags and drums and crates came off. She watched Diamondwall waddle up the gangway, watched silent ice fog explode from the jets, watched the craft slide up into the dark. The spotlights were off. Wondering uneasily if it could have been observed from out in space, she went at last to sleep.
Day, when it came, was a white blaze that began on the high icecap, crawled down the yellow cliffs to the bare sandstone and the straggling leatherweed around the hidden dome, dropped at last to sweep the final cloths of purple darkness out of the canyon. After a hundred times, she thought, or ten thousand, its slow drama might become maddening.
Silent, more silent than they had ever been, the clones brought her breakfast and a message. Captain Larron had ordered them to ask her if she wished to tour Freeholm.
“Please!”
Gracious enough, though she felt a cool reserve, they showed her the refuge. The main hall, which was a cavernous throne room. The captain’s study. The huge null-G gym. The sensorion, larger than the one on the ship. Storerooms and food facilities on the lower level. Power came from a nuclear plant, they told her, 3,000 meters down. She didn’t ask if anybody thought cliffdrillers could detect it. The clones themselves clearly feared nothing at all, unless perhaps Larron’s interest in her.
They found the captain himself in the genetics lab, surrounded by white-robed clones and crates off the ship. He came eagerly to seize her hand in his great fist, the force of his grip almost painful. Beaming through the beard, he took her inside to see the half-installed equipment.
“We’re prepared for more than cloning,” he told her. “I suppose you’ve heard of the old efforts to perfect a longevity serum. Originally undertaken, I believe, to extend the Keeper’s life, but abandoned because of unexpected side effects and outlawed later because of a rumor that the Ulnars were supporting such experiments, hoping to turn themselves into elitist immortals.
“In my own genetics research, I stumbled across records of certain illicit studies, undertaken several Terran centuries ago. I contrived to copy the records, and I’ve brought equipment to carry on the work. If we succeed—and we will succeed—our little universe can endure forever.”
He swung to seize both her arms and sweep her closer. Aware of the staring clones, she tried to pull herself away. Ignoring them, he held her.
“Please—”
Laughing softly, he bent his red-beared face to hers. She felt his hot breath, and his hard lips stopped her voice. She shuddered, yielding, her heart pounding. Faintly, far away, a clone called something she didn’t try to hear.
“We’ll have time enough.” He let her go, turning to follow the clones. “Forever!”
Cooler than ever, her escorts took her up to the conning dome. Patterned after a starcraft’s command deck, it was equipped with signal center and conning screen, as well as controls for air, heat and power throughout the refuge. She found it empty, and the clones let her stay.
Exploring the wide panoramas of ice and sky, of barren rock and dusty weed, of the chasm’s hazy gape, she was glad to be out of her windowless cells, glad to be alone. She needed time to come to terms with this narrow prison and her own feelings for its warden. Rebellion seethed inside her, and a savage anger at herself. Because she knew a time would come when she would yield completely to him.
Outside the dome, Ultima I seemed strangely uneventful. The sun was a tiny, cold-blue disk against the filtered screen, crawling very slowly into the unclouded sky above the far canyon rim. Unheard breezes swirled thin yellow dust among the leather weed clumps. Black shadows diminished. That was all, until she found an orange fleck creeping down the ice.
The fleck became a many-wheeled mechanical worm, slithering down narrow trails to the sandstone bench. Nearby, it rolled out of her view, but in a few minutes Diamondwall came puffing up the ramp into the dome, Lord Archy skipping ahead.
“Ah, lass, so here you are!” His yellow face lit. “We’ve hid the blessed craft. For the mortal moment, anyhow.” His pleased look was gone. “But Lord Archy says it can’t stay hid. Not with two mortal starcraft searching from the sky.”
Silently, the robot soared past her to the conning screen. “Wicked hawks!” He squinted anxiously at her. “Hunting us like precious fresh-hatched chicks. Can’t you pick them up, lass, with your blessed pilot gift?”
“Not here.” She shook her head. “Any strong gravity field washes it out.”
They moved to watch Lord Archy dancing over the consoles. The screen darkened. Star images flecked it. At last she saw a faint green point creeping among them.
“Information, Miss Three,” he pealed. “We observe wreckage of the Legion battlecraft. Its orbital motion remains unchanged since it was attacked. We compute a high probability that all personnel were killed.”
“Mortal good luck if they were,” Diamondwall muttered. “But don’t forget the wicked ship that hit it—”
“Reminder, Mr. Two. We do not forget. Additional information: We continue observing and computing orbital motion of alien battlecraft.”
“Where is it?” Jil whispered. “Near?”
“Report, Miss Three. Men battlecraft is now following circumpolar orbit, mean altitude three hundred kilometers—”
“Flying low enough,” Diamondwall wheezed. “Searching every precious inch of the mortal planet!”
“Can they find us?”
“Aye, lass. I think they will. Unless they’re blind as blessed bats. They’ll see the trail we left in the snow, returning from where we hid the mortal craft—”
Shuddering, he swung away from her.
“I’m famished, lass. Nothing on the blessed icecraft but rusty water and musty space rations. If we’re hiding like mortal mice from a pack of prowling cats, I need food and precious wine to nerve me for the wicked instant—”
Wheezy voice fading, he reeled into the elevator.
Jil stayed with the robot. They watched the sky. The cold sun climbed to the empty zenith and sank back toward the ice plateau. In spite of the gravity, she felt the alien battlecraft before Lord Archy found it on the screen. It was falling out of the south, already so low the screen showed its strange teardrop shape. No retrojets were burning, and she thought at first that it too had been disabled.
“Observation, Miss Three,” the robot’s gong voice rang. “Men battlecraft detected on landing trajectory.”
“Out of control?”
“Negative, Miss Three. We observe no rockets firing. Data lacking on mode of propulsion. But landing trajectory appears to be fully controlled.”
“Coming down here?”
“Negative, Miss Three. Alien craft descending toward location of concealed S. S. Hedonian.”
It had dropped beneath the ice horizon before they heard its passage overhead: a sudden thunder crash that shook the dome and rolled very slowly into silence. The intercoms flickered with the startled faces of Diamondwall and Larron, demanding news.
“Data lacking, Mr. Two—”
The bell notes broke abruptly off.
“Information, Miss Three.” The little robot skittered toward her. “We are receiving signal from alien battlecraft. Voice transmission on reserved Legion frequency. Name of speaker stated. Master-Pilot Jef Gyrel.”
“My father!” Jil whispered. “What’s he saying?”
19
The robot’s bell voice changed.
“Calling anybody—anybody human!”
Hoarse and strained and breathless, it was her father again, his voice remembered from those good times so long ago when he and Captain Shon Macharn used to come home out of the nebula.
“Calling—calling anybody off—S.S. Hedonian.” Odd interruptions broke its desperate rush. “I’m Legion Pilot Jef Gyrel. Down on the ice—ice field where you hid the starcraft. Nobody here, but I must have help. For God’s sake—”
A strangled pause.
“Pick me up! My last—last chance to get away. From years of hideous slavery. A helpless human—human tool used against mankind. My warning must get to the Legion. For God’s sake—answer! Now! My master—master parasite—it will surely kill me when it gets control again.
“If you can still move and speak—”
A ragged, long-drawn scream.
“My father!” Jil whispered. “Call him back—”
“Don’t!” Larron’s command rang out of the intercom. “We’ll maintain signal silence.”
“But, sir—” Unbelieving, Jil spun to face his green-imaged scowl. “My own father! With the truth about the invaders. Don’t you see we must—”
“I see we must save ourselves. His own signal has created danger enough from those human marauders the satellite crew warned us about. If they homed on our signal—”
“If they heard my father, that harm’s done now.” Trembling and desperate, she leaned toward the intercom. “Captain, that’s my father!”
“Jil, I’m sorry.” His voice fell, almost tenderly. “But we can’t get involved. We’d only waste ourselves. All we can hope to do—with whatever luck and common sense we can command—is try to save our own little universe.”
His tone grew colder.
“Please, Jil. For your own sake.” He turned to the robot. “Continue to monitor all Legion frequencies. Record any further signals and report them to the pilot and to me.”
“Command received,” Lord Archy tolled.
“Jil, I think you need a drink.” Larron’s greenish image smiled again at her. “I’ll expect you at dinner in an hour.”
“I—I’m waiting here,” she whispered. “If my father calls again—”
“You may wait.” He nodded. “But you will make no effort whatever to respond.”
His image vanished, but Diamondwall’s remained.
“Aye, lass!” The green moon face looked stark with apprehension. “Larron says we can live forever here, so long as we stay hid. We’d be mortal fools to tell the shadowflashers where we are—or invite some crazy human cannibal to roast our blessed bones tonight.”
Then he, too, was gone.
Alone with the robot, waiting forlornly, she paced the crystal dome. Outside, the arctic sun blazed on ice and rock and rusty leatherweed. The world seemed frozen, soundless, already dead.
“New data, Miss Three.” The robot startled her. “Voice signal from your father.”
Breathless, she spun to listen.
“Legion Pilot Jef Gyrel.” A hoarse and hurried rasp. “Calling—anybody! Can’t wait longer. Leaving shadowflasher craft, down near Hedonian. Will try to follow your snow track. Can’t—can’t get far. Need emergency—emergency medical aid to kill—to kill shadowflasher parasite. “For God’s sake—pick me up!”
The frantic whisper died.
“End of transmission,” Lord Archy pealed.
She caught a gasping breath.
“Listen, Lord Archy!”
“Comment, Miss Three. Command nonessential. We monitor your voice at all times.”
“I want to ask some questions.” She peered at her own image, trembling and tiny, in his silvery curve. “You will not report them to anybody else.”
“Command accepted, Miss Three.”
“You returned from the ship on the icecraft. Where is the icecraft now?”
Soaring nearer, he paused in the air.
“Data, Miss Three. The icecraft was left beneath a sandstone ledge, fifty meters to the right of the entry door, concealed behind a fabric curtain.” He dropped to the deck, bounded back. “Miss Three, do you require our aid?”
