[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Galaxy Magazine August 1963.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
They had only one mission in the Galaxy, with
its infinite problems--make more of 'em!
I
Clouds obscured the three moons as the men slipped into the village.
They eased the double-bitted axes out of their belts and felt their way
through the almost unrelieved blackness until their hands met the soft
yieldings of the door hangings. Waiting until the whisper of leather
gliding over the ground stopped, telling him everyone was in position,
Luke Royceton drew in a deep breath, then suddenly screamed:
"Aiieeeee!"
At his banshee signal, the other men took up the cry. Somebody kicked
the banked coals of the cooking fire into life and stuck in a handful
of twisted grass torches, then moved from man to man, handing them out.
The men screamed again, touched their torches to the over-hanging of
the huts, then tore down the hangings and leaped through the doors,
torches flaming a path.
The interiors of the huts leaped to life. Forms hurtled by the men and
into the night as the pitch-caulked thatching blazed into an inferno.
The rightful inhabitants of the huts crashed into the tall grass of the
surrounding plains, the sounds of their passage quickly dying away as
fear lent wing to their rapidly fleeing heels.
The fires quickly burned through the thatching, sending little fingers
of flame dancing along the lashed saplings that supported the roofs.
Luke took one last look around the interior of his hut and started to
leave, when he spotted something wriggling under a pile of skins.
Crossing the room in three strides, he tore away the coverings and
grabbed the native child by the scruff of its neck. He wheeled on one
heel and retraced his passage. He got out of the door just as the
saplings gave up the ghost and the fiery mass crashed to the ground.
Luke whistled and wiped sweat from his brow. The bronze head of the axe
caught and reflected the fires from its myriad beaten facets. Using the
head, he beat out several sparks that had landed on his clothes, then
turned his attention to the child who still dangled from his other hand.
The child's eyes were rolled nearly into his head with his fright. Luke
grinned, baring his teeth. He brought the child up until their noses
were less than an inch apart. The fetid smell of the child's breath
made him choke. Yelping, the child twisted free and ran after its
already-departed parents.
Luke laughed and turned his attention to his team.
The men were all out now, watching the huts crack under the intense
heat within. One shuddered, then collapsed inward, sending up choking
clouds of dust as it smothered the flames. After a moment, Luke
whistled. Half of the men melted into the grass and followed the
natives, while the others gathered around him, squatting and resting
their axes on the ground. Luke waited until the others returned to
report no further sign of the villagers, then he squatted himself, and
accepted a canteen from someone. He drank his fill, gasped, wiped the
back of his hand across his mouth and handed the canteen back.
"It's hot," he said, conversationally.
"It'll be hotter before we're done," said one of the team. They were
all dressed in rough-cured skins and leather moccasins. The axes were
the only tool they carried. Faces thick with war paint and grime, it
was impossible to tell them from natives.
"Anybody hurt?" asked Luke. Disclaimers came from the various members
of the group. "Good." He stood up and stretched. "Well, gentlemen,
shall we be on our way?"
"Might as well."
Luke took his axe, twisted the unfinished handle a quarter-turn in his
socket, then held the head to his lips. "Team B," he said. "Mission
accomplished." He twisted the handle back and slipped the axe into his
belt. A few moments later, the soft chatter of rotors cut through the
air, and a copter dropped into the clearing by the cooking fire.
The team mounted by the dying glow of the fires. As soon as the last
man was in, the door swung shut and the copter took off into the night.
* * * * *
Sam Carter eased the scratchy material of the ruffed collar away from
his neck, then shot his cuffs to return them to the socially acceptable
half-inch showing beyond his jacket sleeve. He sighed, placed his
hands on his knees and glanced for the umpteenth time at the armored
soldiers guarding the door between the anteroom and Prince Kahl's
private chambers. The afternoon sun dipped below the level of the high
window-slits, sending shadows scampering up the walls.
Sam had been waiting since noon. His stomach was repeating its rumbled
protests against that interrupted meal. Prince Kahl had sent word that
Sam might wait upon his pleasure; quieting misgivings, Carter had
rushed to do just that.
He sighed again, and stifled a yawn. From the corner of his eye, he
watched the shadow line marching up the wall. When it touched the
cobwebby corner of the ceiling, a slave came in and lighted a pair of
oil lamps. The soot-heavy smoke they gave off quickly had Sam wishing
the room had been left in darkness.
Another interminable hour passed, during which he several times
repeated the operation with collar and cuffs, all the while envying the
guards their ability to remain in one position like frozen statues,
seemingly carved from the living rock of the palace. At last, just when
he had resigned himself to the probability of spending the night in the
anteroom, the inner door swung open and a chamberlain beckoned.
"Prince Kahl will grant you a moment now."
Sam bowed his thanks, and followed the man into Kahl's chambers.
"Ah, my friend from the southern kingdoms!"
Prince Kahl was a lean, saturnine individual, uncomfortably aware that
the prime of life was slipping through his grasp while his father
obstinately held onto the throne. It was Kahl's considered opinion that
the old man had lived long enough. It rankled him to realize that he
had held the same opinions as a youth barely out of his teens. The
thirty intervening years had been spent devising and trying methods to
assure his succession; unfortunately his father had twenty years before
that to safeguard his own rule.
"How go the southern kingdoms, my friend?" Kahl waved a particularly
enticing fruit as Carter stopped short, a dozen paces away.
"Tolerably well, your graciousness." He neglected to add that it had
been nearly a year since he had visited the supposed lands of his
birth. Kahl was fully aware how long Carter had been kept cooling his
heels. Palace protocol dictated how long foreign visitors might be kept
waiting. But even visiting royalty could not hope for an audience in
less than a month's time. In his role as ambassador, Carter was happy
that a year was all he had been kept waiting.
* * * * *
"Your lord and master's gifts were received," said Kahl. "You may
inform him of my royal gratitude."
"My humble thanks, your graciousness." Sam's mouth watered as Kahl
polished off the one fruit and selected another from a platter born by
a manservant. Despite his now-long stay on the planet, Sam still could
not understand why women were given no role at all in society, even as
slaves.
"Not at all, not at all," said Kahl. "Now tell me. What is it that
brought you so far from your home lands to grace my humble presence?"
"The usual business of politic, your graciousness," said Sam, growing
weary of the necessity to repeat the title with every reply to Kahl's
words. He also wished for a chair, despite the fact that he had been
sitting all afternoon. He felt like a naughty schoolchild, standing
always in the man's presence. "Trade treaties, mutual armament pacts,
the like."
"Ummm, so. You've discussed them with my ministers?"
"They have permitted me this honor and, if I may be so bold, found
a great deal to our mutual liking. Our countries are indeed far
separated, and the journey between arduous. I find much in your
provinces in the way of technology and armaments that we totally lack.
By the same token, I have thought of a few inconsequential things which
might serve to ease your royal burdens, if but brought from my lands."
"Possible, possible," said Kahl. "Of course, I have a large college of
tinkerers and mechanics who probably would have produced the little
toys you speak of in their own good time. But why duplicate effort,
eh? They are lazy dolts who grumble at my royal largesse as it is."
He chortled lustily, although Sam could see nothing even remotely
humorous in his statement. But he was well-schooled in the idiocies of
diplomacy; he laughed dutifully.
"But come!" said Kahl. "Enough of childish prattle! You carry another
load in your thoughts, my southern friend. Have out with it!"
"Your graciousness?"
"You needn't pretend," he said, chortling again. "My ministers are like
the winds. They cannot keep a single thing to themselves, but instead
need spread it over the far reaches of the entire world. You've been
talking--foolishly perhaps--but I have perceived a certain sense within
your nonsense, and I must confess that your words have aroused my
interest. You have a plan to see me king. Now out with it, lest I make
you a gift of you to my torturer. He can remove anything--including
stubborn vocal cords!"
"You do me undeserved honor, graciousness," said Sam.
"Undoubtedly. And you begin to weary me."
"Very well." Sam sighed. "I must admit that my tongue is too loose for
my own general welfare. It is true that I once thought of something
mildly amusing while passing long evening hours with one of your
ministers. But it was mere idle dreaming, no more."
"You prattle long, southerner." Kahl's eyelids lowered suspiciously.
He picked up a silver knife and began paring his nails, scattering the
shavings suggestively in Sam's direction. "Perhaps you do not want to
see me king?"
"There is none so deserving of the honor as you," said Sam. "But while
you laugh at the utter childishness of my ideas, please remember that
you insisted...."
* * * * *
The Ehrlan delegate to the Central Worlds Conference was well past the
entrance to the Park when the pudgy little man caught up with him,
sides heaving from the unaccustomed strain of running.
"Citizen Lund!" he cried, panting. "Please wait!"
Lund turned and eyed the little man suspiciously. The fellow was a
stranger, and therefore automatically under suspicion. "Yes?"
"A moment of your valuable time, Citizen. Please? I assure you, you
have nothing to fear from _me_. I am not a Yanoian." The name spattered
out acidly.
"Indeed?" said Lund. "And just who, then, are you?" There was a
vague sensation of familiarity troubling the back of his mind. The
omnipresent watchdog in his subconscious pounced instantly on the
feeling, magnifying it, turning it inside out and shaking it around,
but drawing no satisfaction from the act.
"A friend, Citizen. You must believe that. I can't explain further
right now--time is too precious." He grabbed Lund's arm and started
tugging him back towards the Park entrance. "Please? I beg you, come."
"Oh--very well." He gave in ungraciously, following the man until they
were just inside the Park. Then Lund stopped, digging his heels into
the gravel of the walk. The man looked back at him.
"Please, Citizen!" he urged. "We don't have much time!"
"So far as I'm concerned, you don't have any time at all, unless you
tell me right now who you are and what this is all about."
"Not here!" he cried, aghast, as he glanced nervously around at the
many people entering and leaving the Park. A pair of Conference
monitors stopped just outside the gate, fingering their stun-beamers
as they eyed the actions of the two men. They started to move into the
violable hundred-foot circle this side of the gate. The little man
moved quickly, grabbing Lund again and forcibly pulling him beyond the
protection of the monitors. Their skins tingled as they went through
the shimmering haze of the force screen. The monitors stopped just
in time to avoid touching the screen, while Lund and the little man
hurried down a path that wound into a copse of widdy trees from Lund's
own homeworld, Ehrla.
The widdy tendrils stopped their aimless flowing through the trees and
curved down and around the two men, tips melting into the ground and
tendrils broadening into wide blades that sheltered and shielded the
pair from possible watchers.
"Now!" said Lund, shaking the other man's hand from his angrily.
"Perhaps you will do me the honor of telling me who you are and just
what in the name of the Seven Holy Suns this idiocy is all about?"
"A matter of the gravest urgency, Citizen! You must not present your
plans for redistribution of Sector protectorates to this Conference!"
"What?" Lund stared at him in disbelief. "And just how did you learn of
the plans I intend to present to the Conference--I _will_ present, at
this afternoon session? Something smacks of treachery!"
"Never mind how I learned, Citizen. The important thing is the Yano
delegation also knows! They plan to scuttle you before you have a
chance to speak. After that, they'll cut you into little pieces and
devour you!"
"You're insane, man!" Lund started to reach for the widdy tendrils.
"Don't! You must not present your plans to the Conference, Citizen."
A new tone had crept into the man's voice: a strength that belied the
pudginess and general clownishness of the figure. Lund turned slowly,
and found himself staring at a stunner, the winking red of the telltale
showing that it was set to lethal bands.
"Wha...." He gulped his adam's apple back down into his throat. "How
did you get that into the Park? The force screens aren't supposed to
pass weapons."
"There are ways, Citizen," the man said, grinning. No longer did he
seem clownish. "Many so-called impossible things are quite simple, if
only you have access to the proper people and controls."
"What do you really want?" Lund tried to hide his fright, but he was
uncomfortably certain that it was radiating out from him, broadcasting
to the entire world that Citizen Lund was scared silly.
"I told you, Citizen. You must not present your plans to the
Conference."
"But why?" he wailed, in frustration. "Give me a logical reason!"
"The greater good, Citizen." With those cryptic words, the man pressed
the stud of the beamer. Lund gasped, as a giant hand closed around his
heart, then collapsed to the ground in a strange dying parody of slow
motion. Just before the clouds of eternity shut away his vision, he at
last recognized the man.
Himself!