The Man Without a Planet

EIGHT

THE NEXT DAY, shortly after “dawn”—for there was no true difference between day and night on a planet whose skies were eternally filled with the clouded glory of Thunderhawk Nebula, only an artificial and arbitrary hour of clock-time— the long-awaited arrival of the Arthon and his party came.

Raul and Gundorm Varl were in the cavern-mouth to watch as the Outworld monarch came down by atmospheric skimmer from his warship orbiting above. There were, in fact, two skimmers, for the Warlord never traveled with­out his astrologer, his priest, a magician or two, a full squad of his personal guard, and, of course, the various officers and lords of his royal court.

The notorious Arthon turned out to be a tall, fat-bellied and beardless man with a cold smile on his thin lips, a chilling air of condescension, wrapped from head to foot in a magnificent cloak of saffron velvet. He exchanged greetings with the Kahani and her lords that were almost mawkishly effusive and loaded with flowery compliments.

Raul noticed that the Arthon’s guards, of whom there was a surprisingly large number, were great strapping brutes with narrow eyes and sneering lips, profusely armed as if to take a garrison. From the way they stole swift, all-encompassing glances around the landing area, noting the number and allotment of guards and defenses, and from their arrogant, swaggering deportment, Linton thought they resembled hired thugs and bravos more than military officers.

Raul had remained unobtrusively in the background dur­ing the greeting ceremonies, and wandered off when the crowd moved into the corridors bound for the council chambers and the very important negotiations upon which so much hung. He felt at loose ends, irritable, uncomfortable, out-of-place. Not knowing just what to do with himself, he wandered out of the cavern mouth to a small ledge over­hanging the terrible sheer drop of the gorge, and sat down to smoke and to chew over his thoughts.

It was like an illustration from Dante’s Inferno. Overhead, the wild splendor of the fantastic nebula flung out across the sky stupendous streamers and coils of radiance, like the blast-torn firecloud of some cosmic explosion, frozen by a camera forever in an endless moment of furious expansion. And all about him, to either side and stretching beneath his feet into the impossible depths of the gorge, was a seared and shattered wilderness of tortured, cloven rock, like the debris of the explosion.

Ophmar had an atmosphere, of course, but little water and what moisture there was remained confined deep within the planet’s core, tapped only by deep wells. Hence, no erosion save that of the shrieking wind, had weathered or smoothed these jagged fangs and towering pinnacles of ochre and dark vermilion naked rock into rounded pectorals of hill and mountain, as could be seen on more temperate and more fortunate planets. Ophmar remained forever as she had been in that primordial age, geological epochs ago, when the lava fountains and torn masses of liquescent rock, lifted up in the violence of her thunderous creation, had first hardened and cooled.

Far above, dim-seen against the nebula’s incandescent veil of medusa-locks, the tiny red spark of her primary, from whose bosom she had been cataclysmically torn, burned feebly.

The scene was very fitting to his mood.

For a long while he brooded and smoked, fiery thatch of hair tossed by the howling winds, wrapped in a suede cloak against the biting chill of Ophmar’s thin air.

His thoughts were many, and dark.

Eventually he rose, still caught in the mental vertigo of indecision. Hunger claimed him, and warmth: he descended from his lonely, Promethean perch, reentered the vast echoing cavern, and made his way to the quarters he shared with Gundorm Varl.

He found there a visitor waiting for him.

“Someone to speak with y’, sir. He said he’d wait, so I let him squat,” Gunder said. Raul nodded briefly, and inspected his uninvited guest with curious eyes.

He was a Rilké warrior—Rilké of the planet Argastra, from the characteristic accouterments he wore. Tall, lean, hawk-faced, dark-skinned—one of the many landless, loot-seeking vagabonds who had been attracted to the Kahani’s cause by the promise of riches lying open for the ruthless taker. His suede cloak was begrimed and tattered—and none-too-expertly patched. His garments were shabby, care­lessly thrown together, and the man himself was unobtrusive, proud but yet servile—completely unprepossessing.

However, Raul greeted him politely, however abstracted and busy with his own painful decisions.

“Be welcome to what is mine—will you share wine and food?” he asked absently.

“Of honor, no, kazar. I have eaten.” The Rilké spoke a particularly barbarous and colloquial back-country variant of the Tongue, with a slight stammer caused by a speech- impediment, perhaps. Then Linton saw he had an old scar that stretched glassily from the comer of one eye down to snag and lift a comer of his mouth.

And he was villainously dirty.

And he smelled.

Raul invited him to a more comfortable seat on a nest of bright cushions, and knelt himself, RiIké-fashion.

“I thank the kazar, of gentility!”

“All right. Will you smoke, then?” he said, offering a packet of cigarels (his last, as it happened).

The uninvited guest would, indeed, accept a cigarel—and from the width of his gap-toothed smile and the slight tremor of his long and unclean fingers, his impecuniousness was such that he had probably not tasted smokeweed in months.

For a while they smoked in silence. Custom was that one refrains from questioning a guest, but Linton still had too much thinking left undone to hew too closely to good manners.

“My friend says you have requested speech with me. May one inquire, without dishonor, the nature of your request?” he said, finally.

The hawk-face smiled.

“Thought you might like to chat with an old comrade from the wars—Raul!” he said—in Imperial Neoanglic. Linton stared at him.

“Who the devil are you?”

“Name’s Wilm Bardry, though you knew me as Packer Sexton—we served together on the Harel Palldon, back in ’61 —remember?”

“Yes … yes, I do. But who are you, really? What are you doing here?”

“Spying, I guess. I was spying on the Admiral when we were ship-comrades. I’m still at it.”

Raul half-rose, growling: “Spying on me, are you? One of Pertinax’s friends—”

The note of command rang in Wilm’s voice, an unexpected ring of steel. “Sit down. Shut up. Compare me to that crawl­ing serpent, and I’ll give you a mouthful of broken teeth!” Raul sat back, and Bardry continued.

“Nobody’s spying on you. Why should they—you think we think you’re a renegade or something? Space, you’re the luckiest man in the Cluster right now!”

Confused, Raul burst in: “Luck—what are you talking about, Packer? And, of course—don’t you think I’m a rene­gade?”

“Wilm, not Packer.”

“Wilm, then, for Arion! What is all this about—”

“Shut up and I’ll tell you. Nobody ever though you were a traitor, except that slimy sneak, Pertinax, and his fat fool of a boss, Mather. You’re just a poor, confused idealist, like we’ve all been, one time or another. Mather’s boss, Brice Hallen, officially dismissed charges against you in full Staff meeting, and bounced the two of them out of the room after making them both look like the sponge-brained incompetents they are. Don’t worry about—and don’t waste my time with—all this ancient history. Tell me what’s happening here.”

“But, I . . . well, all right—but how did you know where I was? And how did you get here?”

“Came in with a boatload of recruits for the Kahani’s little war, of course; why do you think I’m prettied up like a Rilké? As for knowing where you were, I didn’t. But since you took off with Sharl, and he serves her, and she’s here—credit me with enough wits to put one and one together, and not get three, Linton!”

Head whirling, Linton answered Bardry’s grin.

“All set? Boards all green and ready for lift-off? Now: what’s the news at your end?”

“She’s offered to make me Shakar of her whole force. If I turn it down, she gives the baton either to a Nomad named Zarkandu or to the Arthon who arrived an hour ago.”

“Excellent! Didn’t I say you were the luckiest man in the whole kaking Cluster? When are you planning to attack Valadon?”

Linton stared at him blankly.

“Great Arion, you don’t think I was traitor enough to ac­cept, do you?”

Bardry gave a little bark of a laugh.

“I didn’t think you were fool enough to pass it up. So you told her ‘no’—eh?”

Linton nodded, angrily. “If you think I’m going to lead the Arthon’s loot-hungry pirates into the Inner Worlds—”

Wilm grabbed his head with both hands, and groaned. “Oooh! I knew you were a hardheaded Bamassian, but I didn’t know you were a complete idiot! You turned her down! You, an empty-pouched, landless, wandering outlaw—offered the command of the finest host on the Border—give me patience!

“Let me tell you the situation, Linton: I’ll spell it out to you in simple terms. Ready? Now listen carefully. Every Rilké in the Cluster knows the stupid government played a dirty trick on the Kahani. Half the Border is ready to rise when she lifts her banner. Every last native world among the near stars is spoiling for a good Holy War against us vokarthu—not a one of them isn’t eager for independent rule—and watching like hawks to see if she gets it for Vala­don. Now.

“On the other other side of Thunderhawk Nebula, sits the Arthon on a new Dais that’s rocking like a skimmer in a wind-storm. Half his nobles are after his head—either for his murder of his brother, or his outrageous taxes, or liber­tine habits. He probably hasn’t half the brains of a karf in rutting-season, but he knows the only thing that can squelch the griping before it starts getting bloody, and line up his unruly chiefs behind him, is a nice little war with slathers of loot and glory for all, and especially some for him.

“Still tuned in? Right. Now right there across the nebula from Pelaire is a parsec-full of ripe, rich, underguarded Bor­der worlds. He knows the Empire is exhausted after twelve years of war—and not likely to scream too loudly or be too quick to avenge what is, after all, a minor Border raid. And he knows the Border Patrol is undermanned, underarmed, and lacking in ships. It’s perfect!—he’d be more of a fool than he already is, if he didn’t lead a fleet through the Rift for a quick in-and-out-again raid, to scrape off some of the wealth of Omphale and the richer Inner Worlds.”

“I understand all of this,” Linton said. Wilm nodded af­fably.

“Try a bit more, then. Now, it’s all set up for him. Nothing can stop him … except, just possibly, Valadon, which lies smack in the ‘throat’ of the Rift and has a nice little Patrol garrison with a battery of planet-mounted lasers. It would be sweet as Nomad love, if he could arrange to have all of Valadon rise and overthrow the garrison right about the time his fleet comes streaking through. And what does he find, perched here on tiny Ophmar halfway through the Rift, but the outlawed and exiled Kahani of Valadon, gather­ing together a little army of her own and scheming to smash the Valadon garrison and take her place on the Dais once again. It’s perfect. As if the Fate-God had set the whole thing up for him. All he has to do is persuade the Kahani to lend him her aid—he can promise her anything, it doesn’t matter—nor is she in any sort of a position strong enough to turn down his offer. Have I still got you in my beam?”

“Steady on,” Linton grinned, savagely. There was a wild, boyish enthusiasm about Bardry he found infectious.

“Right. Toss another smoke over here, and I’ll—good! Now, then. And here, right in the middle of everything, sit you, eating at your conscience and feeling noble as Arion that you turned down the most glorious, grand and golden opportunity any man ever had offered to him on the bended knees of Destiny! Still don’t read me? Why, great stars of space, man, what’s to keep you from buying the Kahani’s offer, taking command of her army, whipping it together, and ramming it right straight down the Arthon’s fat throat! You get him bottled up—he can’t get his fleet past Ophmar without your permission—even a handful of ships could hold the Rift at this narrow spot against half the Universe till the end o’ time!”

“But-”

“But—hell! You break the Arthon’s advance, and you not only save the Kahani from starting a serious war and making a very bad mistake (right now, Hallen’s government has nothing more on her than they do on you)—but you also preserve the peace and security of Hercules, and save the Inner Worlds from being invaded, smashed wide open and looted bare by this pack of howling savages!

“Know a better way to recover your ‘lost’ reputation, than this one—to single-handedly beat off an invading army and save the whole damned Cluster all by yourself? Arion! Dykon Mather’s blood will boil when he hears it was ‘known seditious troublemaker Raul Linton’ who preserved the Pro­vincial Capital from attack. Think either he or that slimy sneak, Pertinax, will have any career left, when, after hounding you out of the Hercules stars and yapping ‘trai­tor! traitor!’ at your heels, you turn out to be the heroic savior of the Imperial Border? Why, the government will laugh the two of them from here to Meridian, and they’ll be lucky to get jobs as fourth-sub-assistant postal clerks after everything’s done!

“And what about the Kahani? She has a very legitimate gripe, eh? Hallen did her dirty, right? So—once you’re the big man in these stars, don’t you think the Viceroy could be persuaded to hand out a few amnesties here and there, and maybe restore her to her Dais, if you ask it?”

“I think-”

“Think—kak! I know. What ever you’ll want will be yours for the asking; don’t even bother thinking about it. Why, I wouldn’t put it past Hallen to make you Border Com­missioner in Mather’s place, and let it get out you were act­ing as an undercover agent for his department all the while!”

The prospect revolved slowly in Linton’s mind. He felt his pulse begin to hammer and a half-grin formed on his face. Bardry was watching him closely, almost holding his breath.

“But I’d have to—lie to her. Pretend to accept in good faith—pledge my sword to her cause—” he faltered, half to himself.

“Lie? Man, it would not be lying! You’d be doing her the biggest favor possible. You’d be giving her ‘cause’ the best possible boost. You know she doesn’t have a chance in ten of seizing power in Valadon if the government doesn’t want her there. And if she causes a breach in the peace—at­tacks under arms—that’s all the excuse they need to slap her away in some moth-eaten back country palace for life. And she’s too fine a person for that. Too promising and intelligent a ruler, to be wasted that way. And too damn beautiful a woman!

“All you’d be doing would be taking charge of her affairs as she has asked you to. Of course, you’d be doing the exact opposite of what she wants, but, hell, she’s only a girl anyway. Right now she’s on the brink of making the biggest mistake in her whole life, and the best favor anyone could do would be to jog her out of it. Why the hell do you think that canny old canary-eyed scoundrel picked YOU for the job?”

Raul blinked. Things were coming on too hot and heavy for him to cope with all of these new ideas.

“Sharl—you mean he—?”

“You bet your last munit! He’s her man, of course, to the last drop of blood in his veins. But he knows she’s head­ing for the wrong move. He picked you because he knew you’d get caught up in her affairs and take a hand—and, being a loyal, patriotic vokarthu, the last thing you’d do would be to lead an army against your own people, no matter how shabbily they’d treated you, or however righteously mad you were at the whole rotten, stinking crew of gov­ernment bureaucrats! He picked you because he knew you’d jump the right way—only a sub-cretin could fail to get the idea of turning the Kahani’s army against the Arthon’s in­vasion!”

“If I could be sure ...” Raul muttered.

“Sure? What else? When Omphale and the Border are crawling with thousands of deserters, honestly rotten traitors, turncoats, cashiered and angry ex-Navy men, criminals, cut­throats, outlaws, exiles, incendiaries, revolutionists. God Arion, man, he could have taken his pick without turning around—any one of ’em would jump at the chance to get back at the Government, or the Empire, or Society, or whatever name they like to use to cover up their own failures and mistakes. But—he picked you, a Linton of Bamassa, with loyalty and service to the Province bred into your blood, and brain, and bone, for six solid generations back!”

There was a long minute of silence, while Wilm’s excited words echoed in Raul’s mind. Then he got up slowly. His face was burning, his eyes flashed, the blood was thunder­ing through him, and everything was settled within him.

“I’m sold, Wilm. I’m your man.”

“Good boy!” Wilm sprang up and seized his hand.

“I knew it! I knew you were the right man—that I hadn’t misjudged you, Linton! Now go to it—bust into that coun­cil chamber as acknowledged Shakar and give the Arthon seventy kinds of hell. Accuse him of treachery, of betraying his own pact, of conspiring against the Kahani—”

“Wait a minute, Wilm! What are you talking about? I couldn’t make them swallow a wild charge like that, and it would tip our hand and give the whole game away!”

“Before you can count to twenty, the game’ll be shot if you don’t!” Wilm rapped back. “Because the Arthon means real war. Either he gets a pact with the Kahani, or he takes Ophmar by storm. He’s got half his fleet hovering back there in the Rift, waiting for word to attack us here and now!”

“How do you know this?”

“I got close enough to him in the crush to use this—” One lean, brown hand disappeared into Wilm’s dirty cloak, and emerged holding a marvelously compact little “scanner.” “I suspected he’d try a trick like this—it’s just his style. And sure enough, he was wearing a harness strapped to his chest, under those robes: a commo set large and powerful enough to contact the fleet. He thought he could get away with it, because he knew none of the Rilké would recog­nize a planet-to-ship tightbeam communicator rig even if they saw him with itl”

“But are you sure? Maybe it’s his means of communicating with the ship he has in orbit around Ophmarl”

“No. For that, he’d use the commo set in the skiff which brought him down there—it’s moored in the cavern-mouth for his use. But I double-checked to see if all my boards were green: I used an electronic scrambler and picked the lock on the Kahani’s yacht, and took a look at her mass-detector panel. Sure as seeing—there’s enough ion-steel floating up there at about fifty million miles further back up the Rift to make seventeen ships of the class he owns. Oh, it’s straight fact, Linton. He’s all ready to knock over the Kahani’s head­quarters here, if need be. But he’d rather get it all peace­fully, by having her sign the articles of her own free will!

“Now what you can do is this: storm in and get him slapped in a dungeon-cell good and tight. Then we’ll lift the Kahani’s little fleet up and take ’em against his force. There’s a better-than-even chance we can pull it off? What do you say?”

Linton wasted no time with idle words. He was on fire with an exultant, unholy joy—the fight was joined! He seized up the great crimson ceremonial cloak and was off in a swirl of color, Asloth sliding from her scabbard.

“Gundorm! Let’s go—”

With a beaming Gundorm Varl on his heels and the naked sword in his hands, Linton was off striding down the hallway, the cloak belling out behind him. His head was high and his heart sang happily: action—at last!

Before the portal to the council chamber, he confronted a startled guard who stared at the naked sword and then at Linton’s blazing eyes.

“Announce the Shakar Linton—and let me pass!”

Something in the ringing crack of command in his voice caused the guard to snap to full salute. With a thunderous crash the portals were flung wide, causing the council to turn startled faces towards them as they stood in the doorway. “Way for the Shakar Lin-ton!” the guard cried.

It was begun!