Collected Short Fiction, page 294
“I have serious matters to discuss with you, milady,” Navarre said. “My—seedling farm—is in serious danger. The crop is threatened by hostile ones. This concerns you, I believe.”
She nodded. “I believe it does. Let us arrange an immediate meeting, Melwod Finst.”
THEY MET at the Two Suns, a refreshment-place not too far from the spaceport. Navarre, unfamiliar with Kariad, was not anxious to travel any great distance to meet Helna; since he was posing as an ostensible Kariadi, any undue lack of familiarity with his native world might seem suspicious.
He arrived at the place long before she did. They had arranged that he was to find her, not she him; not seeing her at any of the tables, he took a seat at the bar.
“Rum,” he said. He knew better than to order the vile Kariadi beer.
He sat alone, nursing his drink, grunting noncommittally any time a local barfly attempted to engage him in conversation. Thirty minutes and three rums later, Helna arrived. She paused just inside the door of the place, standing regally erect, looking round.
Navarre slipped away from the bar and went up to her.
“Milady?”
She glanced inquisitively at him.
“I am Melwod Finst,” he told her gravely. “Newly come from Jorus.”
He led her to a table in the back, drew a coin from his pocket, and purchased thirty minutes of privacy. The dull blue of the force-screen sprang up around them. During the next half hour they could carouse undisturbed, or make love, or plot the destruction of the galaxy.
Helna said, “Why the disguise? Where have you been? What—”
“One question at a time, Helna. The disguise I needed in order to get off Jorus. My old rival Kausirn has placed me under sentence of death.”
“How can he?”
“Because he knows our plan, and has painted me to Joroiran as a black villain.”
“Which you are, of course.”
“True. But they should never have found out. Kausirn’s spies are more ingenious than we think. I heard him tell the Overlord everything—where we were, the secret of the Chalice, our eventual hope of restoring Earth’s empire.”
“You denied it, of course?”
“I said it was madness. But he had some sort of documentary evidence he gave the Overlord, and Joroiran was immediately convinced. Just after I had won him over, too.” He scowled. “I managed to escape and flee here in this guise, but we’ll have to block them before they send a fleet out to eradicate the settlements on Earth and Procyon. Where’s Carso?”
Helna shrugged. “He has taken cheap lodgings somewhere in the heart of the city, while waiting for word from you that his banishment is revoked. I see little of him these days.”
“Small chance he’ll get unbanished now,” Navarre said. “Let’s find him. The three of us will have to decide what’s to be done.”
He rose. Helna caught him by one wrist and gently tugged him back into his seat.
“Is the emergency so pressing?”
“Well—”
“We have twenty minutes more of privacy paid for; should we waste it? I haven’t seen you in a month, Hallam.”
“I guess twenty minutes won’t matter much,” he said, grinning.
THEY FOUND CARSO later that day, sitting in a bar in downtown Kariad City, clutching a mug of Kariadi beer in his hand. The halfbreed looked soiled and puffy-faced; his scalp was several days dark with hair, his bushy beard untrimmed and unkempt.
He looked up in sudden alarm as Helna’s hand brushed lightly along his shoulder. “Hello,” he grunted. Then, seeing Navarre, he said, “Who’s your friend?”
“His name is Melwod Finst. I thought you’d be interested in meeting him.”
Carso extended a grimy hand. “Pleased.”
Navarre stared unhappily at Carso. Filthy, drunken, ragged-looking, there was little of the Earthman about him save the bald scalp. True enough, Carso was a halfbreed, his mother an Earthwoman—but now he seemed to have brought to the fore the worst characteristics of his nameless, drunken Joran father. It was a sad sight.
He slipped in beside the halfbreed and gestured to the bowl of foul Kariadi beer. “I’ve never understood how you could drink that stuff, Domrik.”
Carso wheeled heavily in his seat to look at Navarre. “I didn’t know we were on first-name terms, friend. But—wait! Speak again!”
“You’re a bleary-eyed sot of a halfbreed,” Navarre said in his natural voice.
Carso frowned. “That voice—your face—you remind me of someone. But he was not of Kariad.”
“Nor am I,” said Navarre. “Blue skin’s a trapping easily acquired. As is a Kariadi wig.”
Carso started to chuckle, bending low over the beer. At length he said, “You devil, you fooled me!”
“And many another,” Navarre replied. “There’s a price on my head on Jorus.”
“Eh?” Carso was abruptly sober; the merriment drained from his coarse-featured face. “What’s that you say? Are you out of favor with the Overlord? I was counting on you to have that foolish sentence of banishment revoked and—”
“Kausirn knows our plans. I barely got off Jorus alive; even Joroiran is against me. He ordered Kausirn to send a fleet to destroy the settlement on Earth.”
Carso bowed his head. “Does he knew where Earth is? After all, it wasn’t easy for us to find it.”
“I don’t know,” Navarre said. He glanced at Helna. “We’ll have to find the old librarian who gave us the lead. Keep him from helping anyone else.”
“That’s useless,” Carso said. “If Kausirn knows about the Chalice and its contents, he also knows where the crypt was located and how to get there. At this moment the Joran fleets are probably blasting our settlements. Here. Have a drink. It was a fine empire while it lasted, wasn’t it?”
“No Joran spacefleet has left the Cluster in the last month,” Helna said, suddenly, quietly.
Navarre looked up. “How do you know?”
“Oligocrat Marhaill has reason to suspect the doings on Jorus,” she said. “He keeps careful watch over the Joran military installations, and whenever a Joran battlefleet departs on maneuvers we are apprised of it. This information is routed through me on its way to Marhaill. And I tell you that the Joran fleet has been utterly quiet this past month.”
Reddening, Navarre asked, “How long has this sort of observation been going on?”
“Four years, at least.”
Navarre slammed the flat of his hand on the stained tabletop. “Four years! That means you penetrated my alleged defensive network with ease—and all the time I was trying to set up a spy-system on Kariad, and failing!” He eyed the girl with new respect. “How did you do it?”
She smiled. “Secret, Navarre, secret! Let’s maintain the pretense: I’m Earthman to Marhaill’s Court, you to Joroiran’s. It wouldn’t be ethical for me to speak of such matters to you.”
“Well enough. But if the fleet’s not left yet, that means one of two things—either they’re about to leave, or else they don’t know where to go!”
“I lean toward the latter,” Carso said. “Earth’s a misty place. I expect they’re desperately combing the old legends now for some hint.”
“If we were to obtain three Kariadi battle-cruisers,” Helna mused aloud. “And ambush the Joran fleet as it came down on Earth—?”
“Could we?” Navarre asked. “You’re in Kariadi garb. What if I obtained an appointment in our space navy for you, Navarre? And then ordered you out with a secondary fleet on—ah—maneuvers? Say, to the vicinity of Earth?”
“And then I tell my crewmen that war has been declared between Jorus and Kariad, and set them to destroying the unsuspecting Joran fleet!” Navarre went on.
“Not destroying,” said Helna. “Capturing! We make sure your battlewagons are equipped with tractor-beams—and that way we add the Joran ships to our growing navy.”
Carso nodded in approval. “It’s the only way to save Earth. If you can handle the appointments, Helna.”
“Marhaill is a busy man. I can handle him. Why, he was so delighted to see me return after a year’s time that he didn’t even ask me where I had been!”
Navarre frowned. “One problem. Suppose Kausirn doesn’t know where Earth is? What if no Joran fleet shows up? I can’t keep your Kariadi on maneuvers forever out there, waiting for the enemy.”
“Suppose,” said Helna, “we make sure Kausirn knows. Suppose we tell him.”
Carso gasped. “I may have been drinking, but I can’t be that drunk. Did you say you’d tell Kausirn where our settlements are?”
“I did. It’ll remove the constant pressure of his potential threat. And it’ll add a Joran fleet to a Kariadi one to form a nucleus of the new Terran navy . . . if we handle the space-battle properly.”
“And what if Kausirn sends the entire Joran armada out against your puny three ships? What then?”
“He won’t,” said Navarre. “It wouldn’t be a logical thing to do. He’d expose Jorus to too many dangers.”
“I don’t like the idea,” Carso insisted, peering moodily at the oily surface of his beer. “I don’t like the idea at all.”
CHAPTER V
FOUR DAYS LATER Navarre, registered at the Hotel of the Red Sun, received an engraved summons to the Oligocrat’s court, borne by a haughty Kariadi messenger in red wig and costly livery.
Navarre accepted the envelope and absently handed the courier a tip; insulted, the messenger drew back, sniffed at Navarre, and bowed stiffly. He left, looking deeply wounded.
Grinning, Navarre opened the summons. It said:
BY THESE PRESENTS
BE IT KNOWN
That Marhaill, Oligocrat of Kariad, does on behalf of himself and his fellow members of the Governing Council invite
MELWOD FINST
of Kariad City to Court on the 7th instant of the current month.
The said Finst is therein to be installed in the Admiralty of the Navy of Kariad, by grace of private petition received and honored.
The invitation was signed only with the Oligocrat’s monogram, the scrollwork M within the diamond. But to the right of that, in light pencil, were the initials H.W., scrawled in Helna’s hand.
Navarre mounted the document on the mantel of his hotel room and mockingly bowed before it. “All hail, Admiral Finst! Melwod Finst of the Kariadi navy!”
He examined his makeup to see that the blue remained consistent and unblotched; the wigmaker had done a good job, though. He was still the impeccable model of a Kariadi gentleman.
Inspection over, he dialed Helna at the Oligocrat’s Palace.
“Melwod Finst speaking. My invitation to Court came today, and I wish to tender my gratitude for securing this appointment for me.”
“It was but your just desert,” Helna said gravely.
“The rank of Admiral is not dispensed lightly. I hope to be seeing you at Court tomorrow.”
“Indeed you will. And may I have the pleasure of dinner with milady tonight?”
COURT WAS CROWDED the following day when Navarre, in a rented court-costume, appeared to claim his Admiralty. The long throne-room was lined on both sides with courtiers, members of the government, curious onlookers who had wangled admission, and those about to be honored.
Marhaill, Oligocrat of Kariad, sat enthroned at the far end of the hall, sprawled awkwardly with his long legs jutting in separate directions. At his right sat Helna, befitting her rank as Earthman to the Court and chief adviser of Marhaill. On lesser thrones to both sides sat the eight members of the governing council, looking gloomy, dispirited, and bored. Their functions had atrophied; Kariad, once an authentic oligarchy, had retained the forms but not the manner of the ancient government. The governing council had value only as decoration.
But it was an imposing tableau.
Navarre stood impatiently at attention for fifteen minutes, sweating under his court-costume—and praying fervently that his dye would not run—until the swelling sound of an electronic trumpet called the assemblage to order.
Marhaill rose. He was a gigantic man, almost seven feet high at Navarre’s rough estimate. How much of that was built up in his footgear, Navarre could not judge; but he bore in mind that even Joroiran was an imposing figure when he chose to be.
The Oligocrat made a brief speech, welcoming all and sundry to Court, and finished by declaring that today was the day those who had performed meritorious service to the realm were to be rewarded. Helna surreptitiously slipped a scroll into his hands, and he began to read, in a deep, magnificently resonant voice which Navarre suspected was his own, and not simply magnified by a microamplifier embedded in his larynx.
Navarre counted. His name was the sixty-third to be called; preceding him came three other new admirals, four generals, seven ministers plenipotentiary, and assorted knights of the realm. Evidently Marhaill believed in maintaining a good number of flashily-titled noble gentry on Kariad. It was a way of assuring loyalty and service, thought Navarre.
Finally:
“Melwod Finst. For meritorious services to the realm of Kariad, for abiding and long-standing loyalty to our throne, for generous and warm-hearted qualities and for skill in the arts of space. We show our deep gratitude by bestowing upon him the rank of Admiral in our Space Navy, with command of three vessels of war.”
Navarre had been carefully coached in the procedure by Helna. When Marhaill concluded the citation, Navarre clicked his heels briskly, stepped from the audience, and advanced to the throne.
He gave a military salute. “Thanks to Your Grace.” He knelt.
Marhaill leaned forward and draped a red-and-yellow sash over Navarre’s shoulders.
“Rise, Admiral Melwod Finst of our Navy.”
Rising, Navarre’s eyes met those of Marhaill’s. The Oligocrat’s eyes were deep, searching—but were they searching enough to realize the new Admiral was a shaven Earthman, renegade from Jorus? It didn’t seem that way.
The shadow of a smile flickered across Navarre’s face as he made the expected genuflection and backed from the Oligocrat’s throne. It was a strange destiny for an Earthman: Admiral of Kariad. But Navarre had long since learned to take the strange in stride.
He knelt again before Helna, showing the gratitude due his sponsor, and melted back into the crowd, standing now in the line of those who had been honored. Marhaill called the next name. Navarre adjusted his admiral’s sash proudly, and, standing erect, watched the remainder of the ceremony with deep interest.
A GRAND FETE followed, at which the hundred-thirty-eight recipients of honors were granted a luxurious banquet in the Palace. Marhaill himself put in only a token appearance at the beginning; his place was taken by Gobroir, a wizened little member of the governing council.
The food was good, the wine superb. Navarre sat as far from the other new admirals as he possibly could, planting himself among the ambassadors-designate at the lower end of the table. During the vague period of after-dinner chatter before the breakup of the group, Navarre had his one close moment of the day.
That occurred when a balding but fierce-looking Kariadi in an admiral’s red-and-yellow sash drifted toward Navarre, drink in hand.
“Melwod Finst, isn’t it? I’m Admiral Jollin Garsignol, First Navy.”
The new Admiral Finst muttered a greeting.
But Admiral Garsignol was persistent. “I can’t quite seem to place you, Finst. You a First Navy man, by any chance?”
“Eh?” Navarre cupped his ear. “Speak up, please.”
“I said, are you First Navy?”
Navarre considered that for a moment, before shaking his head. “No. Not.”
He edged toward the bar, but Garsignol said, “Third, then? Seems to me I saw you in the Vallibin action, now that I think of it. Third?”
“My ears,” Navarre explained loudly. “Suffered injury in last campaign. Haven’t heard worth a damn since then. You just have to write things out if you want to ask me things, Admiral Gilsogno.”
“Garsignol. I’ll—oh, never mind.”
Chuckling, Navarre helped himself to another drink.
He escaped further questions on the part of his fellow admirals, and managed to leave the hall at a seemly hour, stomach well-filled, warm of heart.
Helna met him outside. “Your ships have already been assigned,” she told him. “Three of the biggest cruisers we have. I’m having them specially refurbished for the occasion with ultrapowerful tractor-beams and whatever artillery can be scraped up.”
“Good. Won’t Marhaill suspect anything, though?”
“Him? He’s too busy with his current mistress to pay any attention to what goes on around him. I could requisition the whole planet over to you and he wouldn’t find out about it for a week.”
“When do I take over my command?”
“I’ll show you the ships tomorrow. Then we send word to Kausirn—we can do that through regular spy channels—and take off for Galaxy 18347 to wait for the Joran ships to arrive.”
Navarre nodded. “It sounds good. I think we’ll swing it, after all.”
“Somehow,” she said. “Somehow—Admiral.”
He returned to his hotel-room and spent the evening reading. About midnight he felt the urge to celebrate, and put a call through to the lodgings of Domrik Carso. But the halfbreed was nowhere to be found, and Navarre, not caring to drink alone, went to sleep.
THE MILITARY SPACEPORT closest to Kariad City was the home base of the Fifth Navy, and it was to this group that Helna had had Navarre assigned.
He reported promptly the following morning, introducing himself rather bluntly to the commanding officer of the base and requesting his ships. He was eyed somewhat askance; obviously he was not the first sheerly political appointee in the history of the Kariadi navy. In any event, a sullen-looking enlisted man drove Navarre out to the spaceport itself, where three massive battle-cruisers stood gleaming in the bright morning rays of Secundus, the yellow sun.
Navarre nearly whistled in surprise; he hadn’t expected ships of this order of tonnage. He watched, delighted, as Kariadi spacemen swarmed over the three ships, getting them into shape for the forthcoming battle maneuvers.
