Again that thoughtful stare. She saw a tall young man, badly
disarrayed, blood and dirt streaking his long, thin-carved, curve-nosed
features, an old scar jagging across his high narrow forehead. The
hair was yellow, the eyes were blue, the whole look that of an old and
settled aristocracy. His bitter voice lashed at her: "We ruled Ansa
well because we were part of it, we grew up with the planet and we
understood our folk and men were free under us. That's something which
no upstart Solar Empire can have, not for centuries, not ever to judge
by the stock they use for nobility. When peasants command spaceships--"
Her face grew a little pale, but she smiled and replied evenly, "I am
the Lady Jansky of Torgandale on Valor--Sirius A IV--and you are now a
commoner. Please remember that."
"All the papers in the Galaxy won't change the fact that your
grandfather was a dirt farmer on Valor."
"He was an atomjack, and I'm proud of it. I suggest further that an
aristocrat who has nothing to trade on but his pedigree is very ragged
indeed. Now, enough of that." Her crisp tones snapped forth. "You've
committed a serious offense, especially since this is still occupied
territory. If you wish to cooperate with me, I can arrange for a
pardon--also for your brawling friends. If not, the whole bunch of you
can go to the mines."
Donovan shook his head, trying to clear it of alcohol and weariness and
the ringing left by the parabeam. "Go on," he said, a little thickly.
"I'll listen, anyway."
"What do you know of the Black Nebula?"
She must have seen his muscles jerk. For an instant he sat fighting
himself, grasping at rigidity with all the strength that was in him,
and the memory was a blaze and a shout and a stab of pure fear.
_Valduma, Valduma!_
The sudden thudding of his heart was loud in his ears, and he could
feel the fine beads of sweat starting forth on his skin. He made a
wrenching effort and pulled his mouth into a lopsided grin, but his
voice wavered: "Which black nebula? There are a lot of them."
"Don't try to bait me." Her eyes were narrowed on him, and the fingers
of one hand drummed the desktop. "You know I mean _the_ Black Nebula.
Nobody in this Galactic sector speaks of any other."
"Why--well--" Donovan lowered his face to hide it till he could stiffen
the mask, rubbing his temples with manacled hands. "It's just a nebula.
A roughly spherical dustcloud, maybe a light-year in diameter, about
ten parsecs from Ansa toward Sagittari. A few colonized stars on its
fringes, nothing inside it as far as anyone knows. It has a bad name
for some reason. The superstitious say it's haunted, and you hear
stories of ships disappearing--Well, it gets a pretty wide berth. Not
much out there anyway."
His mind was racing, he thought he could almost hear it click and whirr
as it spewed forth idea after idea, memory after memory. _Valduma and
the blackness and they who laughed. The Nebula is pure poison, and now
the Empire is getting interested. By God, it might poison them! Only
would it stop there? This time they might decide to go on, to come out
of the blackness._
Jansky's voice seemed to come from very far away: "You know more than
that, Donovan. Intelligence has been sifting Ansan records. You were
the farthest-ranging space raider your planet had, and you had a base
on Heim, at the very edge of the Nebula. Among your reports, there is
an account of your men's unease, of the disappearance of small ships
which cut through the Nebula on their missions, of ghostly things
seen aboard other vessels and men who went mad. Your last report on
the subject says that you investigated personally, that most of your
crew went more or less crazy while in the Nebula, and that you barely
got free. You recommend the abandonment of Heim and the suspension of
operations in that territory. This was done, the region being of no
great strategic importance anyway.
"Very well." The voice held a whipcrack undertone. "What do you know
about the Black Nebula?"
Donovan had fought his way back to impassivity. "You have about the
whole story already," he said. "There were all sorts of illusions as
we penetrated, whisperings and glimpses of impossible things and so
on. It didn't affect me much, but it drove many toward insanity and
some died. There was also very real and unexplainable trouble--engines,
lights, and so on. My guess is that there's some sort of radiation in
the Nebula which makes atoms and electrons misbehave; that'd affect the
human nervous system too, of course. If you're thinking of entering it
yourself, my only advice is--don't."
"Hm." She cupped her chin in one hand and looked down at the papers.
"Frankly, we know very little about this Galactic sector. Very few
Terrans were ever here before the war, and previous intercourse on your
part with Sol was even slighter. However, Intelligence has learned that
the natives of almost every inhabited planet on the fringes of the
Nebula worship it or at least regard it as the home of the gods."
"Well, it is a conspicuous object in their skies," said Donovan. He
added truthfully enough: "I only know about Heim, where the native
religion in the area of our base was a sort of devil-worship centered
around the Nebula. They made big sacrifices--foodstuffs, furs, tools,
every conceivable item of use or luxury--which they claimed the
devil-gods came and took. Some of the colonists thought there was
something behind the legends, but I have my doubts." He shrugged. "Will
that do?"
"For the time being." Jansky smiled with a certain bleak humor. "You
can write a detailed report later on, and I strongly advise you not to
mislead me. Because you're going there with us."
Donovan accepted the news coldly, but he thought the knocking of his
heart must shake his whole body. His hands felt chilly and wet. "As you
wish. Though what I can do--"
"You've been there before and know what to expect. Furthermore, you
know the astrogation of that region; our charts are worse than sketchy,
and even the Ansan tables have too many blank spots."
"Well--" Donovan got the words out slowly. "If I don't have to enlist.
I will not take an oath to your Emperor."
"You needn't. Your status will be that of a civilian under Imperial
command, directly responsible to me. You will have a cabin of your own,
but no compensation except the abandonment of criminal proceedings
against you." Jansky relaxed and her voice grew gentler. "However, if
you serve well I'll see what I can do about pay. I daresay you could
use some extra money."
"Thank you," said Donovan formally. He entered the first phase of the
inchoate plan which was taking cloudy shape in his hammering brain:
"May I have my personal slave with me? He's nonhuman, but he can eat
Terran food."
Jansky smiled. There was sudden warmth in that smile, it made her
human and beautiful. "As you wish if he doesn't have fleas. I'll write
you an order for his embarkation."
She'd hit the ceiling when she found what kind of passenger she'd
agreed to, thought Donovan. But by then it would be too late. _And,
with Wocha to help me, and the ship blundering blind into the
Nebula--Valduma, Valduma, I'm coming back! And this time will you kiss
me or kill me?_
* * * * *
The _Ganymede_ lifted gravs and put the Ansa sun behind her. Much
farther behind was Sol, an insignificant mote fifty light-years away,
lost in the thronging glory of stars. Ahead lay Sagittari, Galactic
center and the Black Nebula.
Space burned and blazed with a million bitter-bright suns, keen cold
unwinking flames strewn across the utter dark of space, flashing and
flashing over the hollow gulf of the leagues and the years. The Milky
Way foamed in curdled silver around that enormous night, a shining
girdle jeweled with the constellations. Far and far away wheeled the
mysterious green and blue-white of the other galaxies, sparks of a
guttering fire with a reeling immensity between. Looking toward the
bows, one saw the great star-clusters of Sagittari, the thronging
host of suns burning and thundering at the heart of the Galaxy. _And
what have we done?_ thought Basil Donovan. _What is man and all his
proud achievements? Our home star is a dwarf on the lonely fringe of
the Galaxy, out where the stars thin away toward the great emptiness.
We've ranged maybe two hundred light-years from it in all directions
and it's thirty thousand to the Center! Night and mystery and nameless
immensities around us, our day of glory the briefest flicker on the
edge of nowhere, then oblivion forever--and we won't be forgotten,
because we'll never have been noticed. The Black Nebula is only the
least and outermost of the great clouds which thicken toward the Center
and hide its ultimate heart from us, it is nothing even as we, and yet
it holds a power older than the human race and a terror that may whelm
it._
He felt again the old quailing funk, fear crawled along his spine and
will drained out of his soul. He wanted to run, escape, huddle under
the sky of Ansa to hide from the naked blaze of the universe, live out
his day and forget that he had seen the scornful face of God. But there
was no turning back, not now, the ship was already outpacing light on
her secondary drive and he was half a prisoner aboard. He squared his
shoulders and walked away from the view-plate, back toward his cabin.
Wocha was sprawled on a heap of blankets, covering the floor with his
bulk. He was turning the brightly colored pages of a child's picture
book. "Boss," he asked, "when do we kill 'em?"
"The Impies? Not yet, Wocha. Maybe not at all." Donovan stepped over
the monster and lay down on his bunk, hands behind his head. He could
feel the thrum of the driving engines, quivering in the ship and his
bones. "The Nebula may do that for us."
"We go back there?" Wocha stirred uneasily. "I don't like, boss. It's
toombar. Bad."
"Yeah, so it is."
"Better we stay home. Manor needs repair. Peasants need our help. I
need beer."
"So do I. I'll see if we can't promote some from the quartermaster. Old
John can look after the estate while we're away, and the peasants will
just have to look after themselves. Maybe it's time they learned how."
At a knock on the door: "Come in."
Tetsuo Takahashi, the ship's exec, brought his small sturdy form around
Wocha and sat down on the edge of the bunk. "Your slave has the Old
Lady hopping mad," he grinned. "He'll eat six times a man's ration."
"And drink it." Donovan smiled back; he couldn't help liking the cocky
little Terran. Then, with a sudden renewed bitterness: "And he's worth
it. I couldn't be without him. He may not be so terribly bright, but
he's my only proof that loyalty and decency aren't extinct."
Takahashi gave him a puzzled look. "Why do you hate us so much?" he
asked.
"You came in where you weren't asked. Ansa was free, and now it's just
another province of your damned Empire."
"Maybe so. But you were a backwater, an underpopulated agricultural
planet which nobody had ever heard of, exposed to barbarian raids
and perhaps to nonhuman conquest. You're safe now, and you're part
of a great social-economic system which can do more than all those
squabbling little kingdoms and republics and theocracies and God knows
what else put together could ever dream of."
"Who said we wanted to be safe? Our ancestors came to Ansa to be free.
We fought Shalmu when the greenies wanted to take what we'd built, and
then we made friends with them. We had elbow room and a way of life
that was our own. Now you'll bring in your surplus population to fill
our green lands with yelling cities and squalling people. You'll tear
down the culture we evolved so painfully and make us just another bunch
of kowtowing Imperial citizens."
"Frankly, Donovan, I don't think it was much of a culture. It sat in
its comfortable rut and admired the achievements of its ancestors. What
did your precious Families do but hunt and loaf and throw big parties?
Maybe they did fulfill a magisterial function--so what? Any elected yut
could do the same in that simple a society." Takahashi fixed his eyes
on Donovan's. "But rights and wrongs aside, the Empire had to annex
Ansa, and when you wouldn't come in peaceably you had to be dragged in."
"Yeah. A dumping ground for people who were too stupid not to control
their own breeding."
"Your Ansan peasants, my friend, have about twice the Terran birth
rate. It's merely that there are more Terrans to start with--and
Sirians and Centaurians and all the old settled planets. No, it was
more than that. It was a question of military necessity."
"Uh-huh. Sure."
"Read your history sometime. When the Commonwealth broke up in civil
wars two hundred years ago it was hell between the stars. Half savage
peoples who never should have left their planets had learned how to
build spaceships and were going out to raid and conquer. A dozen
would-be overlords scorched whole worlds with their battles. You
can't have anarchy on an interstellar scale. Too many people suffer.
Old Manuel I had the guts to proclaim himself Emperor of Sol--no
pretty euphemisms for him, an empire was needed and an empire was
what he built. He kicked the barbarians out of the Solar System and
went on to conquer their home territories and civilize them. That
meant he had to subjugate stars closer to home, to protect his lines
of communication. This led to further trouble elsewhere. Oh, yes, a
lot of it was greed, but the planets which were conquered for their
wealth would have been sucked in anyway by sheer economics. The second
Argolid carried on, and now his son, Manuel II, is finishing the job.
We've very nearly attained what we must have--an empire large enough
to be socio-economically self-sufficient and defend itself against all
comers, of which there are many, without being too large for control.
You should visit the inner Empire sometime, Donovan, and see how many
social evils it's been possible to wipe out because of security and
central power. But we need this sector to protect our Sagittarian
flank, so we're taking it. Fifty years from now you'll be glad we did."
* * * * *
Donovan looked sourly up at him. "Why are you feeding me that?" he
asked. "I've heard it before."
"We're going to survey a dangerous region, and you're our guide. The
captain and I think there's more than a new radiation in the Black
Nebula. I'd like to think we could trust you."
"Think so if you wish."
"We could use a hypnoprobe on you, you know. We'd squeeze your skull
dry of everything it contained. But we'd rather spare you that
indignity."
"And you might need me when you get there, and I'd still be only half
conscious. Quit playing the great altruist, Takahashi."
The exec shook his head. "There's something wrong inside you, Donovan,"
he murmured. "You aren't the man who licked us at Luga."
"Luga!" Donovan's eyes flashed. "Were you there?"
"Sure. Destroyer _North Africa_, just come back from the Zarune
front--Cigarette?"
They fell to yarning and passed a pleasant hour. Donovan could not
suppress a vague regret when Takahashi left. _They aren't such bad
fellows, those Impies. They were brave and honorable enemies, and
they've been lenient conquerors as such things go. But when we hit the
Black Nebula_--