AT ONE END OF A SPECIALLY CLEARED AREA THAT STRETCHED THE full length of the walled grounds behind Kleippur’s residence, the Carthogian infantry sergeant lay prone with a captured Waskorian projectile hurier fitted snugly against his shoulder and one arm partly extended to support its length. He sighted along its top tube at the first of the red disks along the far wall, aimed carefully, and squeezed the small firing lever with a finger of his other hand. The hurier barked and kicked vigorously, and in the same instant most of the red disk at the far end of the grounds disappeared. The sergeant repeated the process rapidly while Kleippur and Dornvald watched grimly with a small group of Carthogian officers and military advisers. In short order, a small ice boulder exploded; a piece of outer wall cut from an organic building disintegrated into pulp; and two sets of standard-issue Carthogian body armor mounted on full-size dummies at the end of the line were reduced to shreds. Dornvald signaled to the far end of the grounds, and soldiers who had been standing well back from the line of fire moved forward to collect the target plates.
“There can be no protection against this,” Lofbayel whispered to Thirg, who was looking on numbly. “Those soldiers were doomed from the moment they set out to pursue the Waskorians. The outcome was a foregone conclusion.”
“Truly,” Thirg agreed. “Just as Horazzorgio and the Kroaxians were doomed from the moment they chose to set foot in the Meracasine. And now the whole of Carthogia is surely doomed.”
Lumian weapons such as these which a Carthogian raiding party led by Dornvald had seized deep inside Waskorian territory, had been the cause of the disasters that had befallen the Carthogians recently in rapid succession. A routine border patrol had failed to return, and the force sent to look for it had been almost annihilated in a Waskorian ambush. Then the Waskorians had attacked a border fort which fell after putting up a stiff fight. A small band of survivors escaped and managed to join up with a relief column advancing from Menassim under the command of a General Yemblayen. Kleippur had ordered Yemblayen to halt and avoid further engagements until the reason for the sudden Waskorian invincibility was better understood.
The most worrisome aspect of the unexpected Waskorian successes was that the Lumian weapons must have come from the Kroaxians, with whom the Lumians were known to have made contact. If the Waskorians were taking over the border zone as preparation for an all-out invasion from Kroaxia, and if the whole of the regular Kroaxian army had been equipped, with firepower as devastating as that being demonstrated behind Kleippur’s residence, then Carthogia wouldn’t last another bright. Kleippur’s social experiment would be over; night would fall over an Age of Reason that had barely begun to dawn; and everything that Thirg and Lofbayel had sought to escape would ensnare them once again.
“What is your opinion, Pellimiades?” Kleippur asked the technical advisor, who was examining another sample of Waskorian weaponry with an artisan’s keen eye.
Pellimiades shook his head dubiously. “Such detail and precision are only to be found growing naturally upon this world,” he replied. “No work of any craftsman that I have seen, nor any of which I have heard tell, could remotely approach it. If this is Lumian workmanship, then the Lumians could well be lifemakers indeed.”
“You can offer no imitation, however crude, nor any other means by which our soldiers might hope to compete on equal terms?” Dornvald asked.
Pellimiades shook his head again. “None, General.”
Two soldiers arrived at a run from the far end of the grounds and presented four target plates. The first had the center of its red disk completely blown away; the second was torn into a tight cluster of overlapping holes offset to one side of the disk; the third was peppered with a pattern of more widely scattered holes; and the fourth was much like the first. Kleippur drew a long, heavy intake over his coolant vanes and shook his head gravely. “We have no choice,” he said. “Our only chance is to accept the terms which the Merehant-Lumians offered us originally. If we cannot supply comparable armaments of our own, then we must obtain theirs; and if taming forests for Lumians is the price we must pay, then so be it. This has become a matter of survival.” He turned to Lyokanor, the army’s senior intelligence officer. “Assemble the Cabinet to agree what shall be the form of our message. We will convey it to the Lumian merchant princes by way of the inquirers who still occupy the Lumian camp.”
“At once, sir,” Lyokanor replied and hurried away.
“We will proceed to the Council Chamber and await the others there,” Kleippur said. “Our first task must be to arm every able-bodied citizen as best we can in case the Kroaxians invade, and to agree on tactics for holding out until we begin receiving Lumian aid. The times ahead will be hard ones, I fear.”
Thirg felt dejected as he and Lofbayel followed the rest of the party across the rear courtyard toward the house. Kleippur, with his usual pragmatic acceptance, was devoting his efforts to making the best of the situation as it existed and not wasting time and energy on futile accusations or complaints. But it was Thirg who had persuaded him that the Wearer was sincere, and who had talked him into heeding the Wearer’s treacherous words. It was clear now that the whole episode involving the Wearer had been a Lumian ploy to keep Carthogia unsuspecting and inactive while negotiations were concluded with Kroaxia, the start of a process that would eventually bring all the robeing nations under the Lumian heel. The Lumian strategy to attain that goal had been cold, calculated, ruthless, and efficient, and its implementation seemed so practiced that Kleippur suspected the whole technique to have been perfected long ago—used, perhaps, for the enslavement of dozens, or even dozen-dozens, of worlds. But whatever the truth of that, there could be no stopping the process now. Better a slave state than no state at all—the main task now was to ensure the survival of Carthogia.
Worst of all, Thirg had placed all his personal trust in the Wearer and had no alternative now but to admit that he had been betrayed cruelly. That bewildered him the most. He had never been more sure of anything in his life than of the special relationship which he had thought he and the Wearer shared—a relationship based on a mutual understanding of the power of mind and reason that transcended differences in language, race, form, and even world of origin. Each had recognized a common quality in the other that reduced all their differences, striking as they seemed at first glance, to no more than trifling superficialities, indicating—or so Thirg had hoped—the existence of a bond that could unite all the unknown forms of life and mind that existed across the countless worlds above the sky. Truly inquiring minds everywhere had more in common than divided them, and could work together regardless of what they were or where they came from, just as the true inquirers from Kroaxia and Carthogia could work together without cognizance of the borders between their nations. Lumian ways would spread across Robia and bring an end to the reign of ignorance, superstition, and fear; no longer would beliefs be imposed by dictate or intimidation...and instead, knowledge and reason would prevail.
Or so Thirg had believed.
But the Wearer had deceived him and taken advantage of his trust. All of the promises and reassurances had been as devious and as self-serving as the practiced rhetoric of a trained prosecutor in the court of the High Council of Kroaxia. It seemed, then, that the appeal of reason was not so universal after all; possibly it was as rare among the worlds beyond the sky as was Kleippur among Robia’s rulers, and the domain of reason as small a portion of the universe as Carthogia was of Robia. Thirg had to concede that he knew of no law of nature which said it had to be otherwise. Therefore, he told himself, partly in consolation, perhaps it was a mistake to feel he had been wronged, for the concept of “wrongness” was surely subjective—an expression of the limits that the majority of robeings placed upon desirable behavior, within robeing society, as judged through robeing eyes, on the basis of robeing teaching and experience. No valid basis could exist for extrapolating identical, or even comparable, ethical codes to beings from other worlds. So no compelling evidence could lead Thirg to conclude that the Wearer had deliberately “wronged” him—Thirg’s behavior might simply have been considered hopelessly naive and infantile by Lumian standards. But the thought didn’t make him feel very much better. He was still bitterly disappointed.
They climbed some shallow steps to the rear terrace of the main building and were about to enter the hallway outside the Council Chamber when the sentries at one of the courtyard’s side entrances opened the gate to admit a mounted messenger. The messenger’s steed crossed the yard at a gallop and halted below the terrace. Kleippur, who had been about to enter the door, looked back over his shoulder then turned and strode to the head of the steps, followed by Dornvald, while the entourage parted to let them through. “Speak,” Kleippur said to the messenger. “What is your news?”
“Tidings from General Yemblayen,” the messenger replied, his words coming fast with urgency. “The Waskorians have crossed our lines and are heading toward Menassim.”
Alarmed murmurs broke out among the others on the terrace. “How many and how armed?” Dornvald snapped. “Was there a battle? Where, and what were our losses? What is the condition of Yemblayen’s force?”
The messenger shook his head. “Your pardon, sir, but you misunderstand. There has been no battle. General Yemblayen opened his lines to allow the Waskorians free passage. They have agreed willingly to travel under Carthogian escort and are approaching Menassim peacefully, led by their prophet, Ezimbial.”
“Ezimbial...leading them peacefully?” Kleippur stared in disbelief. “Have you been imbibing uranium salts, messenger?”
“’Tis true, ‘tis true,’ the messenger insisted. ‘They are seized by a new faith that renounces all war and killings. They speak of Carthogians as brothers and are proceeding to the Lumian camp to return the Lumian weapons, which the Waskorians say they no longer have use for.”
A frown darkened Dornvald’s face. “They are heading toward Menassim with their Lumian weapons? It is a trick! What madness could have possessed Yemblayen?”
“The Waskorians have entrusted the weapons to their escorts and bear no other arms.”
Kleippur stared for a few seconds longer, then shook his head helplessly: “New faith?...Renouncing war? Where did this come from? Do you know anything more?”
“The Waskorians speak of a Divine One whom they call Enlightener, who was brought down into their land by shining angels from the sky to preach the Lifemaker’s commandments to the world,” the messenger answered. “He came with disciples, some of them former Kroaxian cavalry troopers; others are from Xerxeon, where all the villagers have been converted. Chief among the disciples is a baptizer called the Renamer, who was previously Captain Horazzorgio of the Kroaxian Royal Guard.”
Dornvald gasped. “Horazzorgio, a baptizer? What kind of miracleworker is this Enlightener?”
“Indeed the Waskorians tell of wondrous miracles that accompanied the Enlightener’s coming,” the messenger said. “Of fires that burned in the sky, rocks that melted, streams that boiled, objects that levitated, and holy dragons bearing shining angels from above.”
Dornvald’s eyes twinkled suddenly at the mention of dragons. “And what of our forward scouts and observers?” he asked. “What have they had to say about all these miracles and dragons?”
The messenger remained expressionless. “Nothing, sir. But many reports were received of what sounds like the same Lumian flying vehicle being very active in the areas where the miracles were supposed to have occurred, and at about the same times.”
“I see,” Dornvald said. He stepped back from the balustrade and turned to catch Kleippur’s eye. Kleippur was smiling, as were the others behind him. Then Dornvald too started grinning.
And Thirg too smiled—at first faintly and disbelievingly, then broadly, and finally he clapped Lofbayel heartily on the back and laughed out loud. Who the Enlightener might have been, he had no idea...but he thought he knew well whose the flying vehicle had been, and who the real miracle-worker was at the back of the whole business.
Up in the Orion, Gerold Massey walked angrily out of an elevator in Globe II and turned to follow the corridor leading to the day quarters used by Zambendorf’s team. He had talked to a number of the mission’s scientists and other professionals about the situation and had managed to galvanize some of them into crackling, dynamic action sufficient to lodge a formal protest with Leaherney. And that was it. The protest had been rebuffed amid a tangle of expertly contrived obstructions, denials, technicalities, and bureaucratic obfuscations, and a demand for unrestricted access to the Earth communications link politely but firmly refused. Having thus done all they could, the protesters had expressed their regrets to Massey—all in a very decent and civilized way, naturally—and returned to their various interests and duties. Even more galling was the thought that while he, Massey, was the professional psychologist, everything had happened exactly as Zambendorf had predicted. “We both understand what makes people tick, Gerry,” Zambendorf had said. “The difference is that I accept it but you won’t.”
Massey reached the door of the suite, knocked, and waited while Thelma checked on a viewer inside to see who it was before letting him in. “No good,” he told her, tossing out his hands as he stamped inside. “Leaherney was expecting it. He was all set up. Anyway, apart from Dave Crookes and Leon Keyhoe, Graham Spearman, Webster, and a couple of others who do seem genuinely concerned, they weren’t that interested. Nothing about all this affects anything that’s really close to them.”
Thelma seemed unsurprised. “You had to give it a try though,” she said. “Forget it for a minute and come take a look at this.” She led him into the suite and sat in front of the screen she had been watching when he arrived.
Massey moved behind the chair to look over her shoulder. The screen looked down on a procession of Taloids dressed in flowing white robes and wearing garlands of some kind—probably pieces of metal strung on wire—around their necks. Some of them were carrying banners that bore Taloid inscriptions, and others were beating on or blowing into what looked like musical instruments while the rest swayed rhythmically as they marched. Flanking both sides of the procession were uniformed cavalrymen that Massey recognized as Genoese, moving at a slow walk and leading pack animals loaded with bundles of Terran rifles and submachine guns, ammunition boxes, and grenade packs. Behind the files of cavalry, other Taloids were gathered along the roadside to watch. “Is this a view from Karl’s flyer?” Massey asked.
Thelma nodded. “Uh-huh. It’s coming in live.”
“What’s happening? Where’s it from?”
“The road to Genoa,” Thelma told him. “It’s all over with the Druids. They’re on their way to Genoa Base to give all the hardware back. Moses went over real big.”
Massey shook his head slowly as he watched, and found that he was smiling. “I don’t know...I’ve never heard of anything so crazy,” he muttered. “I wouldn’t have given it a snowball’s chance in hell.”
“Arthur and Galileo called a little while ago,” Thelma said. “They seem pretty pleased with it all too.”
“Have you got a line to the flyer?” Massey asked her.
Thelma nodded and touched a button below the screen. “Hello, Hornet. Anybody down there?” she said.
“What’s new?” Clarissa’s voice replied.
“Oh, Gerry Massey’s just arrived. I think he wants to offer his congratulations,” Thelma said.
“I wouldn’t have believed it,” Massey called over her shoulder.
“That’s why we’ve always given you problems,” Clarissa answered. “You underestimate your opposition.”
“Maybe I do. Anyhow, is Karl there?”
“Hang on.”
A few seconds of silence went by. Then Zambendorf’s voice said, “Hello, Gerry. Well, what do you think of our little show down here?”
“I’m impressed. I gather Arthur and Galileo are more than satisfied with the service they’re getting too.”
“We always try to give our customers their money’s worth,” Zambendorf replied. “How did things go with Leaherney?”
“No good—pretty much the way you predicted.”
“Mmm...a pity,” Zambendorf murmured. Then his voice perked up. “Anyway, never mind. I think we’ve proved our secret weapon sufficiently to move on to the next phase.”
“What next phase? I thought this was it. The Druids won’t be causing any more trouble, and Arthur’s happy with the outcome. What else do you want?”
“All very satisfying, I agree, but I still have a large personal score to settle with friend Caspar, Dan Leaherney, and the good people back on Earth who thought I was just another puppet they could buy,” Zambendorf said. “What you’ve seen has been just the dress rehearsal, Gerry. The real performance is about to begin.”
“Karl.” A note of suspicious dread crept into Massey’s voice. “What are you talking about?”
“This is the most devastating thing since the H-bomb,” Zambendorf’s voice said, sounding exuberant. “First Moses, then a squadron of Paduan cavalry, after that an entire Taloid village...and now a whole tribe. It’s snowballing down here like nothing you’ve ever seen.”
“So?...”
“Next we bag the whole Paduan army, which is on the march toward Genoa right now, and then we import the complete operation right into Padua and dump it in Henry’s backyard!” Zambendorf exclaimed, chortling. “Imagine if the whole Paduan nation told Leaherney where to stuff his military aid...and later on, maybe, the whole of Titan. What a way to screw GSEC, Ramelson, the politicians—all of them!”
“But...but you don’t have enough people to do something like that,” Massey objected.
“What do you mean, not enough people? We’ve got Moses, and Lord Nelson with his cavaliers down here, plus a lot more from the village...and now I don’t know how many thousand Druids from this latest addition. I told you, Gerry—the whole thing’s snowballing.”
“Yes, I know, but what I meant is you’ve only got a twelve-man Hornet flyer down here. You don’t have the transportation capacity to move enough bodies into Padua fast enough to trigger a real revolution. See what I mean? You need the right critical mass. Otherwise it’ll all just fizzle out.”
“Oh, that’s all under control,” Zambendorf said breezily. “Just as soon as we—“
Thelma cut him off. “Karl, don’t go into all that right now. Gerry doesn’t know about it yet. I haven’t had a chance to—“
“Know about what?” Massey demanded. A cold, creeping feeling deep down inside somewhere told him that his worst fears were about to come true.
“You wouldn’t want to know about it,” Thelma told him. “Now, why don’t you just—“
“I want to know about it. What’s going on? What is it that you haven’t had a chance to tell me about yet?...”
“Tango Baker Two to Control, launch sequence completion confirmed and BQ checking at zero-three-five. I have fourteen on beta-seven and a clear six-six. Transferring to local.”
“Roger, Tango Baker Two. BQ vector confirmed and delta repeater reading green. Orion Control standing down. Have a good trip.”
“Roger. Out.” Andy Schwartz, captain of the surface lander that had just begun its descent from the Orion, checked his instruments once more and settled back in his seat. Course was set on automatic to a reentry window that would bring them down onto a shallow descent from seventy degrees east, direct into the ground base at Padua, and trim was adjusted for the heavy-load cargo of materials and machinery. No passengers were aboard this trip—apart from the two Special Forces troopers who had missed their flight through an admin foul-up and were hitching a ride down to rejoin their unit.
Most of the soldiers that Schwartz and his crew had flown to the surface lately had been instructors being sent to train Paduans in weapons-handling. The “base” at Padua was just a couple of pads and some landers parked at an isolated location among some hills well away from the city, apparently because its existence had not been revealed to the general Paduan population by their leaders—not at all like the situation at Genoa. Not even the Paduan army had been let in on the secret; the rank and file received their weaponry training from a small, select corps of Paduan instructors who were the only ones who ever actually met Terrans. Schwartz didn’t know what to make of it all.
“Have they shipped any girls down to Padua Base yet?” the copilot asked casually from the seat next to him.
“No chance, Clancy.”
“Maybe you could use the break, Clancy,” Mike Glautzen, the flight engineer, suggested from his station behind them. “I read somewhere that occasional abstinence is good for your health.”
“Baker needs to try something that’s good for his health,” Hank Frazer muttered as he tapped commands into a touchboard below the displays at the Communications Officer’s position across the aisle from Glautzen.
“I read somewhere that too much health’s bad for you,” Baker said.
“Causes cancer, huh?” Schwartz murmured.
“Doesn’t too much of anything always cause something?”
“How about too much moderation?” Frazer said.
“It causes excess-deficiency,” Baker said. “That’s real bad.”
Glautzen sniggered. “Gonna have to get used to that for a while, Clancy. No parties when we get to Padua—just work, man.”
Baker frowned down at his instrument for a second. “Say, I’ve had a great idea, guys,” he said, turning his head to look back over the seat. “How about the latest swingers’ with-it thing, straight from Southern California?”
“What’s that?” Glautzen asked.
“An inflatable-doll-swapping party! It’s all the rage with—“ Baker broke off as he saw the large, black soldier, clad in Special Forces camouflage combat dress—one of the lander’s two illicit passengers—entering through the door at the rear. “Hey, you’re not supposed to be up front here, pardner,” he warned. “You’re supposed to stay back in your seat, belted down till we’re on the pad.”
“Get outta here, willya,” Schwartz said, glancing back. “If you wanna see the flight deck, that’s fine—but not until after we touch down, okay?”
Joe Fellburg eased himself fully inside the door and leveled his machine carbine. His teeth shone pearly white against his skin as he flashed an amiable grin. A moment later Drew West, also wearing combat dress and holding a .45 automatic, entered behind him and moved away from the door to cover the crew from a different angle. “Now let’s all be friendly and sensible about this,” Fellburg suggested. “Just do like we say, and you’ll all be fine. Now switch the H-twenty-seven to F range and lock onto a surface transmission that you’ll pick up at twenty-eight point-three megahertz. Then reprogram the descent profile and follow the beam down to where it takes us, okay?”