The Man Without a Planet

NINE

AS HE STOOD THERE in the great doorway, his eye flashed over the turning faces to meet her startled stare. No words passed between them; no signal was exchanged. But none was needed. One look at Linton’s blazing, imperious eyes— one glance at the lean, erect fighting stance of him—and she knew beyond need of slow words.

He had come to life! Doubt, confusion, frustration and in­decision were ended. Gone was his dull, knotted brow, and stumbling, awkward speech—the slouched, tense posture of one struggling within himself. The time for thought had passed—the moment for action was at hand.

She saw—she knew—and her sudden, breathless smile of delight was like dawn’s silent, swift explosion over a drab, dreary wilderness.

“My lords,” she said, rising from the tall, throned dais before which was spread the half-circle of lords and chief­tains, squatting on cushions with small black taborets before them on the rich carpeting, “may I present unto you the lord Lin-ton Shakar, of whom you have heard so much.”

Her rising forced them to rise, all of them, even the Arthon. Linton bowed, briefly.

“The Shakar has agreed to lead my host, and thus has a place in this council … to which he comes regret­tably late—ah—due to pressing duties among my troops. My lord, come and sit you here with us—and your servant, as well.”

With Gundorm Varl at his heel, Linton entered the ring and sat down near the dais while the Barnassian squatted behind him. The chieftains reseated themselves. Across the half-circle, Sharl caught Linton’s eye and elevated his eye­brows eloquently. Linton half-nodded, and permitted him­self a slight wink. The tall Rilké smiled warmly in reply—and welcome.

“The Shakar has led great fleets in the Imperial wars against the Mica stars ere now,” the Kahani concluded, “and he has valiantly joined us in our mutual cause, pledging his sword for the love of justice and right.”

The Arthon cleared his throat impatiently.

She shot a cool glance at him.

“And now that the lord Shakar has joined the council, of gentility, kazara, shall we not return to our discussion?”

A mutter of agreement ran about the ring.

“Then: the lord Arthon of Pelaire was stating the terms and conditions to which we must agree, if he is to join his fleet to our troops. My Lord?”

The tyrant of Pelaire bowed slightly, and began in a smooth yet irritating voice:

“To reiterate, my lady, ten thousand fighting men armed and ready, and forty ships—these all are mine to command and I offer them to your service, if so you choose. Fifteen of these vessels are of the kind the accursed vokarthu name ‘containers-of-men,’ ” he said, and Linton presumed he meant a literal translation of personnel-carriers.

“And in these ships thou shalt find room enough for all thy force. But here ariseth the first problem: Valadon hath little armament to halt us, save for a battery of lasers, mounted at the Naval fortress. The batteries of this garrison must be seized and silenced ere I can command my fleets to draw within range! This, Kahani, we shall leave to those warriors loyal to you upon the planet. Word must be carried to these faithful, by some means, with instructions to rise up and storm the garrison. This must be timed precisely with foreknowledge of the time of our fleet’s arrival, to be fully effective.”

“All of this can doubtless be arranged,” the Kahani said gravely. “I am in touch, through spies, with many Rilké of Valadon still loyal to my cause.”

“First, then, the seizing of Valadon,” he continued, ticking the points off, his scented and curled beard tossing up and down with each arrogant toss of his head.

Behind Raul, Gundorm Varl whispered hoarsely: “Wouldn’t y’ give a year’s wages, sir, to grab that oily Outworlder’s beard and give it a good pull, now? Gods of Space, how the fella does talk!”

“Quiet, Gunder!” Raul snapped—and yet could not re­frain from smiling at the idea.

Catching the smile, and perhaps overhearing a bit of this interchange, the Arthon paused deliberately, one finger raised, for all the world like one who tests the direction of the wind.

He coughed, a little bark of annoyance, and the expres­sion of his face—glaring eyes and deeply disapproving pursed lips—caused Gundorm Varl to emit a chuckle, hastily choked back as eyes turned his way.

Linton struggled to control his face, and regain the rigid composure suitable to one of his new, exalted rank, but his exuberant spirits were too powerful.

The Arthon glared poisonously.

“Pray pardon me,” he grated, nastily, with a peremptory glance at the Kahani, “but have I spoken a jest, or per­haps said something to amuse you, my lord Shakar, for I see you smile when men talk plans of war… .”

“No. Please continue,” Linton said, bluntly. A faint flush stained the Arthon’s sallow cheeks. He glanced away from Linton and continued ticking off points.

“Second, the looting of the garrison’s armory for weapons and equipment. If any of the Border Patrol ships are captured intact on Valadon, they shall be added to our forces. Naturally, a levy shall be made on the local treasury—”

The Kahani’s head went up at that. “No looting!” she said. The Arthon smiled, insinuatingly, yet arrogantly—a combination Linton had never seen before, and one at which he marveled.

“Of course my lady does not think I can call upon my men to fight and risk their lives to retake Valadon, without monetary recompense? I shall not, assuredly, touch one nizan of Valadon’s wealth, but shall levy a suitable sum from the accursed vokarthu government’s treasury—”

“All of which was taken in unjustly severe taxes from my people of Valadon,” the Kahani noted. He regarded her with chilly eyes, and the beard lifted arrogantly.

“The Kahani is aware she is asking for the help of my loyal troops—the protection of my fleet—the—”

“Oh, very well, take what you must—but the amount shall be agreed upon beforehand, and it must only be a por­tion.”

He smirked.

“Of surety—a portion, a fair, just portion!”

Say one hundred percent, Linton thought.

“Thirdly, once the Kahani’s officers have taken command of key positions on the planet, and all is securely within her power and our aid is no longer required, we shall de­part in force for our central objectives, Omphale, Diika, and the Inner Worlds. Now,”—he coughed delicately—“we come to a minor but not unimportant point, one over which I think discussion will not be needed.” He gazed deliberately around the low, circular table from lord to lord, including Linton, and back to the Kahani.

“And what is that, of gentility?” she inquired.

“The battery of 177-micron surface-to-space laser cannon,” he said silkily. “These shall, of course, be in loyalist hands at the beginning of the taking of Valadon. There is a certain risk involved here: when we return out of the Inner Worlds and cruise past Valadon to reenter the Rift, we shall be direct­ly in line-of-fire of this battery. Purely as a safety precau­tion, to make certain the battery is in friendly hands, I wish to leave a company of my troops behind to mount guard over these weapons—”

Her eyes flashed, then were veiled behind a fringe of sooty lashes.

“Of honor, I feel certain my lord the Arthon does not suggest he cannot trust my warriors in such an occasion?” she purred silkily, as the chieftains muttered and grumbled—

Raul caught a flash of outrage in Zarkandu’s dark eyes, and near him, he noted Sharl of the Yellow-Eyes stiffen.

The Arthon was all a fluttering of deprecating hands and soothing mouth-sounds.

“Such prospects do not enter my mind,” he said warmly. “But is it not just within possibility that Imperials or local malcontents might, in the confusion and stir of events, break loose of restraint and seize control of this key battery? Such occurrences are not unknown, particularly are they not improbable considering the planet only new-taken and all disloyal elements of the population would not have yet been traced and apprehended?”

“It is not impossible, true; but I shall personally see that a powerful force of my most loyal warriors holds the laser battery. Of honor, Arthon, having just freed my peo­ple from one foreign garrison, I cannot in all good faith see myself permitting another foreign troop, however friend­ly, to occupy the planetary defenses.” Her tones were con­ciliatory, but the meat of her words was a definite refusal.

As if he had decided to test her mettle, the Arthon chose to deliver another veiled ultimatum.

“I’m afraid—of honor, kazaral—there can be no question of trusting or not-trusting. I must insist on this point, purely as a matter of friendship between our two sides of this pact. I dare not risk the chance of error in this, and, recall, my lady, if you will not trust my garrison to hold for a brief time the defenses of Valadon—how can I, in all gentility, possibly trust your forces to man the laser bat­tery past which my fleet must pass to seek entry of the Rift?”

At this point, Linton decided the situation was perfect. He rose to his feet, pulling all eyes to him with his lean, raw-boned height, flaming thatch of foreign red hair, and flashing eyes. He fixed his gaze on the surprised face of the Arthon.

“Kak.”

The obscene monosyllable exploded amid the festoons of flowery, complementive and ceremonially sugary Rilké like a needle-spray of iced water. The warrior-chiefs were literal­ly frozen where they sat. Jaws dropped, eyes gaped at him.

The Arthon turned crimson, and then, as the full, hid­eous weight of the insult seeped into his consciousness, the blood drained from his features, leaving him paper-white. He sprang tremblingly to his feet, turning to the astounded Kahani and spreading his arms—but before he could mouth a single protest, Linton was at his side with a single great stride, and tore open his robes.

“This Outworld zepht dares speak of ‘trust,’ ” he said in a thunderous voice, naming a peculiarly loathsome and re­pulsive Border pest resembling, both in habits and basic appearance, an obscenely pink and naked rodent which fed on human droppings. “Trust—and all the time he is ready and prepared to betray you all! Look—and see the amount of trust this fat, impotent boy-dandler has in you—”

Beneath the silken tatters of the Arthon’s robe, his torso gleamed naked, strapped into a complex harness of miniatur­ized electronic equipment.

It would be difficult to have said, at that moment, who was more petrified with astonishment—the Arthon, wheezing and gasping like a fish out of water—or the warriors who were springing to their feet and staring at the harness. A confused babble of noise arose from a dozen tongues: Raul spoke over them all, his flightdeck command voice shock­ing them into silence. He spoke in finest Rilké, deep bell-like chest-tones:

“This is a device of vokarthu science, called a tightbeam communicator. It projects a narrow-focus beam of micro­waves through neospace, without possible detection by an ordinary communicator station! Up there in the Rift, seven­teen warships from Pelaire are waiting for his signal—just beyond range of your kazara’s radar! If you were not will­ing, or could not be threatened or shouted into agreeing to every wish of the Arthon, he planned in cold-blood to violate the flag-of-truce oath of this conference and seize this world of Ophmar by armed force and make you perform his bidding!”

Uproar! Swords flashed from scabbards in a ring of hiss­ing steel. Men shouted, cursed, blasphemed—no more gross insult is know to the Border Rilké than this sort of treach­ery.

The Arthon went mad with rage.

He tom himself loose from Linton’s grip and faced them all, stammering incoherently with fury until froth gathered at the comers of his mouth.

Linton lifted a hand to still the tumult—

“Let the filth deny it if he dares I Speak—what have you to say?”

White face twisted in a rictus of blind rage, the Arthon glared at him with burning, basilisk-eyes of black fire. Lin­ton met his furious glare with a cool, mocking grin.

“I have—only this—to say,” the Arthon grated, struggling for control. One hand lifted swiftly to the control-box of the harness.

“This—only. I can still summon my ships at this very in­stant if I desire! I would prefer your free and willing co­operation—I still ask for it—but if not, then before one of you can move a finger, I can depress this stud and give the signal prearranged. Answer! Which shall it be—your co­operation in the pact—or the other!”

The Kahani, too, had risen to her feet and stood glaring down at the tense white face and mad eyes of the Arthon. Her face, too, was white—livid with the outrage and insult of broken truce. She regarded him with a piercing glance, eloquent of contempt and disgust.

“Not to save the lives of all of us would I stoop to dis­cussion of any pact or union with such as you have proven yourself to be,” she said simply, coldly. It was, truly, a royal answer, and Linton’s blood leapt to hear it.

The Arthon sneered deliberately.

“Then you prefer to have this outlaw-nest scourged from one kepht-hole to the other by my ships?” he flashed. “And your women—what of them? And the children of your war­riors who are here in exile with them?”

It was Zarkandu who answered for them all.

“No child of our blood would wish to be spared by such a mean bargain,” he cried. “Rather that all die together, so that they die with honor!”

“Well spoken!” Raul shouted, and caught the tall Nomad’s answering grin.

The Arthon was not impressed.

“Brave words—stupid words, oh penniless princeling! You have yet to learn, on the gaming-board of the universe, ‘honor’ and ‘justice’ and ‘mercy’—and such-like terms as these, are but pawns—and he who would truly win to greatness must learn to sacrifice these pawns when need calls! Words—empty air, they are, no more—yet fools such as you choose to die for these words! Die then, if so thou wilt!” Ringed by his dull-faced guards who stood about him with bared steel, the Arthon gave a mocking laugh—and jammed home the stud that sent a call winging across neospace faster than light to summon his waiting ships. He closed the connection with a vicious twist of his hand.

There was a long moment of quiet—and then Shaxl the Yellow-Eyed laughed, a short bark of pure joy.

“No—no—of gentility, my lords, my brothers, truly I think none need think about dying—not just yet, at least!” He withdrew his hand from under his robes, exposing a crystal rod beaded within with tiny micro-circuits.

“Good man, Sharl! The ‘dampener’—of course!”

The Rilké chieftains did not know of the function of the vokarthu instrument, but intuited something of its nullifying influence on electronic devices from the expressions of savage joy on the grinning faces of Zarkandu, Linton and Sharl— and from the flash of white-lipped panic which convulsed the Arthon’s face when he realized his tightbeam communicator was totally “dead.”

“Take him!” Linton shouted.

They fell upon the stolid ring of guards with shouting joy and war-cries that rang like bugles—young and old alike, those weaponed and those without arms, who seized up platters or wooden taborets to use as clubs against the Pelaire guard. Perhaps it was the exuberance and war-joy of their exultant mood, or the savagery of their detestation for the truce-breaker, or just that lack of fighting-space jammed the Arthon’s guards into so small a space they did not have armspace to fight properly—but, whatever the cause, they overwhelmed the guards and the Arthon within moments.

There were no casualties on the side of Valadon, save for a bruise or two, a broken tooth, a blackened eye—which none of them felt for sheer, singing joy. Nor were any of the guards killed or even disabled, save for one who suffered from a dislocated shoulder (he had come up behind Linton and was about to put a yard of steel through him, but that Gundorm Varl laid hold of his right arm and nearly tore it loose from its socket in disarming him).

The most injured of all—in esteem, at least—was the Arthon, who had been clubbed over the head with a heavy silver platter. This platter, at the time, had served as recep­tacle for a quantity of vrome—a variety of fruit, soft of skin and liquescent of interior meat, never eaten until over­ripe nearly to the point of putrefaction. As a result of this blow, the Arthon currently presented a rather sorry—or charming spectacle (depending on the point of view, of course), being splattered, stained and beslimed with stinking, wet, slimy fruit-pulp, from head to foot—particularly head —and most particularly-of-all, his curled, perfumed and dyed hair, beard and mustachios, which were now one dripping smear, stiff with drying and rotten-smelling vrome.

Oh, it was a splendid tussle!

And when it was done, and the Arthon and his men were disarmed and standing under guard, Sharl came up to Linton grinning savagely. One eye was blackened and a line of blood drew thin scarlet down his cheek, but his eyes were alight with the joy of battle as he saluted Linton grandly with a bare sword.

“Hail, Shakar! I am glad thou hast come to thy senses at last—and if thou wilt truly be my lady’s Shakar, I am with thee to the death—command me!”

“We have much yet to do,” he said swiftly. “This is only a handful of the squad the Arthon brought with him— where are the others?”

“Six or eight guard the skimmer down in the cavern-mouth, where it is securely cradled beside the Kahani’s yacht. The rest of them—three or four—remain in the Arthon’s quar­ters.”

Linton thought swiftly. “Can you rouse a dozen or two warriors—without alarming the entire base?”

“Yes! There is a guard-barracks down the corridor from here, only a few steps away.”

“Do so at once—Lord Zarkandu!”

The Nomad Prince stepped swiftly to Linton’s side, sal­uting him with a broad gesture.

“Command me, Shakar!” he said with a flashing grin. Linton noted that his crested cap was thrust askew and that half of his black tunic was torn from his brown, mus­cular torso. But he was unhurt and eager for more.

“Of honor, go with the chieftain Sharl. One of you take half the guards and go swiftly to the cavern to seize the Pelairi there—come upon them quietly, without showing weapons, and take them by surprise. They can have no hint of what has transpired here. The other must go with the rest of the warriors to the quarters of the Arthon’s party and perform the same deed with those guards left to watch his property. Swiftly, now!”

They saluted and left. Linton ran a swift glance over the others, and called the Shann of Kartoy to him. He had noted the old warrior-prince during the melee and had seen the vigor and sword-skill he displayed, which belied his gray beard.

“Lord Shann, may I require you to conduct the Warlord of Pelaire and his suite to a suitable and well-guarded suite?”

“Aye, and with joy in the task!” the old warrior rumbled happily. “A more pleasant quarter-hour than the last I have not known for twenty years. Command me, Shakar!”

Raul suppressed a grin.

“Right. And make certain, of gentility, the quarters are sizable enough—for we shall shortly add the dozen or so remaining Pelairi to these.”

The patriarch snapped a crisp command to those ward­ing the crest-fallen Arthon and his battered soldiers, and marched the party from the hall.

Linton looked around absently—had he forgotten any­thing? No—that was it for the present. He turned to go, Gundorm Varl at his side, when—

“A word with you, my lord Shakar?” A voice spoke sweet­ly from the dais behind him. For some absurd reason he flushed pinkly to the ears.

At which Gundorm grinned hugely.

“What are you leering at, you old buffoon?” Raul snapped. The Bamassian shrugged.

“Then get back to our quarters—find Wilm Bardry and I’ll meet the two of you shortly. Lift off!”

Then he turned to the Kahani.

“You lack something of the first requisite of a model Shakar, Lin-ton,” she said with deadly softness. “For in the first twenty minutes of your command, you have wrecked the entire war and ended my chances of success. What have you to say for yourself?”

He swallowed, took a deep breath, and turned to join battle with an opponent more dangerous than half a planet full of Arthons—the woman he loved!