_The orphan system of Onzar was fuming under its leader's
driving, paranoid megalomania. For there was a prize. A
vast, grand prize within a parsec of this ambitious
domain--the major warp-lines of space crossing the Galaxy
between the Allied Worlds and the Darzent Empire. Skyward,
hungry legions!_
* * * * *
Roger Thane had, of course, heard of these meetings. The stories of
his acquaintances in Liaison had been graphic enough but they didn't
begin to do the scene justice. It was, well, jarring.
[Illustration]
Through the one-way glass panel built into one side of the vast
meeting hall of the space station, Thane looked directly across at the
delegation from Onzar, though "delegation" was hardly the word. All
top gold from the Onzar group was there, and it was easy to tell their
rank--fleet marshals, the technical advisors, the interpreters--by the
amount of gold that encrusted their helmets, coruscated from their
shoulder boards, and crept and crawled in heavy filigree around their
uniforms. In that assembly it was easy to pick out Candar. Shorter
than the average Onzarian, with shaven head, his uniform was quite
plain except for small, double-headed platinum shagells on the collar.
And Candar was doing all the talking. When he had started one hour and
fifteen minutes ago his voice had been harsh and low. Now it had
increased in pitch and volume and he was striding back and forth,
showing his scorn for the Allied Systems in every gesture. Thane
glanced at the "absolute" dial of his watch and wondered how long it
would keep up.
"... we have come to deal with you in good faith and again you seek to
exploit us. You would, if you could, take all we produce and give
nothing in return. This you shall not do. Onzar is young, but already
its power encompasses five suns. Each day we grow stronger. We do not
need your shoddy goods in exchange for our treasure."
As Candar's voice became louder and more shrill Thane noticed that a
technician to his left kept adjusting the recorder dials. In an hour
or so the speech would be broadcast through Onzar, three and a half
light years from this meeting place in space. Candar was choosing
words to inflame the already fanatical nationalism of his expanding
system. "You would take our discoveries, the fruits of our genius and
industry. You would even take our young men into slavery. But this
Candar will prevent. We are a warrior race, and what we need, we take.
Our day approaches."
The last three words were his trademark, his invariable sign-off. So
that was that. Candar strode from the room followed by the marshals,
the advisors, the interpreters. Thane looked over to Garth who had
slumped a bit in his conference chair on the Allied Systems side of
the room, and was lighting a cigar. Thane had never particularly liked
Garth, but, now, he felt a touch of sympathy with him. Garth took two
long puffs on his cigar and then slowly shrugged his shoulders as if
to put a final period to the scene.
Back in the Allied Systems naval cruiser, Garth was getting out of his
reserve marshal's uniform. He glanced across at Thane, strapping his
couch belts at the other side of the compartment. "I wanted you to see
Candar in operation. Figured you might as well as long as this show
was scheduled anyway. Could be that it will be of use to you in your
new assignment."
The navigator's voice came over the intercom, "Prepare for finite
acceleration, twenty seconds absolute."
* * * * *
Garth zipped up his civilian coveralls and dropped to the couch,
slipping the stub of his cigar into the converter tube. "This
conference was about like the rest. It makes the sixth, now, that I've
sat through with Candar. You remember he was full of cooperation right
at the start while we were renewing the gold-trade agreement. After
that was settled there was nothing more in it for him except the
chance to make another speech."
Thane looked over at Garth. "I noticed that. But why? There was
certainly plenty of gold splashed over everyone in the Onzar
delegation, but what is it that makes the stuff so important to them?"
Garth looked over in surprise. "You don't know? Well, of course you
wouldn't. You've been working on specialized stuff on the other side
of the Galaxy. I'll give you some of the background on the way back to
Liaison. The sleep-trainer will fill in there."
Garth stopped. Everything stopped as the acceleration began. Both of
them were over-braced for the acceleration was light and even. It was
only 5000 KM to the nearest warp-line.
As acceleration slacked off for the five-minute coast into the warp,
Garth lit another cigar and began. "Onzar was one of those relatively
distant systems which were colonized back in the days when all they
had was the finite drive. Of course, it took them a generation or so
to get out there, at just under the speed of light. And when they got
there, the best guess is that their ship was too damaged for further
flight. Otherwise, considering the planet, they wouldn't have stayed."
Thane flipped through a systems manual to the geographical data for
Onzar IV. He readily agreed that they wouldn't have stayed if it had
been possible for them to get away. Onzar IV was cold, bitterly cold.
Hurricane winds were common. The mountains went up to forty and fifty
kilometers, and the land between them was largely barren desert.
"They couldn't get back into space," Garth continued, "so they stayed
in splendid isolation for about 1500 years. Not another ship touched
the system till the warp-lines were discovered."
Thane looked up. "I suppose they went through the usual reversion of
the orphan systems?"
Garth grunted. "A lot worse than usual. Of course, our version of
their history is largely guesswork because the Onzarians have never
allowed any research. But it's clear that the immigration crew, or
their first-generation descendants, put on a very effective little war
between themselves. By the time they were finished Onzar IV was back
in the age of ox-carts, without the ox."
The intercom sounded again. "Five seconds to warp-line." There was a
pause, then the familiar shummer and they were on the warp-line drive.
As usual, the shummer had put out Garth's cigar. He re-lit it and went
on. "When we began using warp-line travel we hit Onzar in the first
fifty years of exploration. Practically had to. It's only a parsec
from the confluence of nine lines running between our part of the
Galaxy and the Darzent Empire. Right on the main road, right in the
middle of the next war." He stared in silence at Thane for a moment.
"That's one reason I've called you in on this."
For most of the rest of the trip to Liaison, Garth continued to
explain the strange orphan system of Onzar. In the religion, as Garth
described it, the whole priesthood was female, and gold had magical
value. All the men wore gold, the amount strictly in line with their
rank. They despised the women but were in superstitious dread of them
because only the church could sanctify and give power to their gold
symbols of rank. At first, the men had lived in warring tribes, the
women in religious groups. They came together each spring and fall for
the ceremonies of gold consecration.
Still, they did make considerable technical progress, partially
because of their interest in mining. By the time the first warp-line
ship reached them, the Onzarians had the internal combustion engine,
nation-states, mass production, planet-wide wars.
"Of course," Garth went on, "in the early days of warp-line
exploration we weren't as careful as we are now. The Onzarians picked
up enough to put on a real atomic war within fifty years. After that
they expanded through their own system, and even took over nearby
suns. They certainly had the motive for conquest, too. Gold was
running out on their own planet, and they'd go to any lengths to get
it."
Thane glanced at his watch and got back onto his couch. "About time
for deceleration," he said. Garth also began fastening his straps.
Thane glanced over, with curiosity. "Sounds like the usual story, with
some interesting variations. Where do I come in?"
"The thing that makes Onzar uniquely important," Garth said, "is its
position. Space fleets from Darzent or from the A.S. will have to pass
within a parsec of Onzar, because of the confluence of warp-lines in
that part of the system. Whoever controls Onzar can win the war for
the Galaxy when it comes."
Garth paused as they went through the shummer and the beginnings of
deceleration, and then went on. "We were doing fairly well till
Candar's revolt and seizure of power. He is leaning toward Darzent.
Apparently he thinks he can keep his own independence even if Darzent
wins the decision. He's going along with us just enough to assure his
supply of gold. But you noticed his own lack of gold ornamentation.
His eventual aim is undoubtedly to dominate and destroy the religion
because it's about the only independent force left on Onzar, and
Candar is not going to tolerate any independent forces."
Garth looked steadily at Thane. "The rest of the details, the
language, and your own mission will be made clear to you in the sleep
trainer. And it is no exaggeration to say that you will be responsible
for the future of the Galaxy."
* * * * *
Liaison Headquarters had started out several centuries before as a
small organization within the Department of the Outside, directly
under the control of the newly-formed Allied Systems Council. It had
begun in a room, and had later moved to its own building. Now it
occupied a planet.
The four planets in the system all appeared to be barren, lifeless
rocks. Appearances were correct for I, III, and IV. II, however, was
not what it seemed. Like the others, the surface was rocky, barren,
utterly lifeless, without atmosphere. But a few kilometers down, a
red-haired boy had just won a game of bok at school recess. A research
worker had just finished a report on an improved interrogatory drug.
An administrative assistant had just planned a palace revolution on a
system 200 light years away. And Roger Thane, Liaison Agent, was just
entering Medico-Synthesis, some eighteen kilometers under the surface.
The young medic looked up as Thane stepped off the mobiltrack and
entered the room. "You're Thane," he said, with curiosity in his
voice. "The instructions and the sleep-record just came through the
Pneum. I've heard about you people from Proxima. Just how does it
work, anyway?"
Thane walked over to the sleep-table and grinned a little wearily.
"How are you able to see?" he asked. "I don't know that I could tell a
blind man satisfactorily. How do the people of the Noxus system
telepath? I don't know, and they've tried to tell me. All I know is
that mutations occurred sometime while Proxima Centauri was an orphan
system, which enable many of us to make small changes in our
appearance. Hair color, skin pigmentation, fingerprints. Usually takes
about two days. Liaison Research learned how to speed it up with
equipment but they never have learned just what they're working with."
He smiled apologetically. "I'm afraid that doesn't help you a bit but
there's nothing much more I can say that will give you a clearer
picture. I've tried before."
Thane was then in his own normal: black hair and eyes, somewhat over
two meters in height, with the heavily tanned Proxima skin. Before
sliding on the table he took a sheet from the medic and glanced over
his new specifications: yellow eyes, golden hair, golden skin. Slight
slant to eyes. Three centimeters height reduction. All routine
changes, and a matter of a few minutes, with the aid of the Liaison
equipment.
The medic was busy making connections, giving injections and setting
dials. Thane looked up at the brightly lighted ceiling. With no
perceptible lapse he was still staring at it when the medic began
taking off the connections. But in the zero subjective time, the
twelve minutes of elapsed time, Thane had changed his appearance
completely. And what he had learned puzzled him at first and then
angered him.
"Roger Thane," the sleep-record began, "your assignment is the
protection of Dr. Manning Reine...."
Reine, he learned, was one of the scientists who had been working in
obscure laboratories on the Forsberg Project. Forsberg's mathematics
had shown the theoretical possibility of a discreet jump, with no time
lapse, from one of the curving lines of warp to the next, instead of
the present method of travel at "friction speed" along the erratically
curving lines.
Garth's voice cut in on the speech record. "Now that we have the
drive, what are we going to do with it? Politically, the Allied
Systems cannot initiate the attack. Yet if we merely wait, Darzent
will eventually learn the details of the drive. As it is, they
outnumber us, two to one. They have the advantage in almost every
respect. Their only deterrent has been the fear that we do have the
second-stage drive.
"There have already been leaks--enough so that if Manning Reine falls
into Darzent hands, they would have the drive in operation within a
few days. Then immediate attack, and defeat. Your job is to protect
Reine, or to kill him if there is danger of his loss to Darzent."
Manning Reine, a native of Onzar, had been educated at the Systems
University at Beirut, Earth. He'd returned to Onzar but had fled at
the time of the Candar revolution. On Earth, he'd married and gone on
with his research work. Now, after twenty-five years, he was the key
figure in the development of the drive. Undoubtedly his knowledge was
enough to allow Darzent to develop the drive if he should fall into
their hands. And he was not susceptible to the protective,
anti-interrogatory drugs. Reine himself had developed the vitally
important gold catalyst principle.
* * * * *
Reine's address was just a pair of top-secret geographical
coordinates, a thousand kilometers from the nearest feeder jet-line.
Thane looked down at the endless Norwegian forest, a thousand meters
below his rented anti-grav scout. He felt depressed. That was always
a reaction to be expected, of course, after an accelerated identity
change. But then too, there'd been the scene with Garth after he'd
left Medico-Synthesis.
Thane had strode past Garth's secretary and into the inner office
without a word. Garth was behind his desk, his back to the door,
studying a galactic wall map. He turned slowly.
"A bodyguard!" Thane exclaimed. "Is that your idea of the most
responsible job in the Galaxy? You pulled me off the Elron business
just when I was set to engineer the beginnings of a representative
government there. The whole project will be set back by years. And it
was touch-and-go as it was. And for what?"
Garth looked at him calmly for a moment, as he bit off the end of a
fresh cigar. "Thane," he finally said, with deliberation, "the
executive council of the Department of the Outside just doesn't like
your methods. You've put through some really brilliant maneuvers but
you've done it alone, taking chances. I've tried to go along with you
but the last report from Elron caused a real blow-up at the council.
One of the council members suggested your assignment to this bodyguard
job, as you call it, and they all agreed. I had to go along."
"Just why, then, is all this Onzar background necessary? Did you think
it would fool me?"
"I said I _had_ to go along," Garth answered impatiently, "but that's
not all. I also _wanted_ to go along with the idea. This is much more
important than it appears on the surface. We have reason to believe
that Reine is still connected with Onzar. We don't have much to go on,
but one of your jobs will be to get the details."
The coordinates on the lat-don dial had almost lined up, though the
forest was still completely unbroken below. A few hundred meters to
the right and he had it. Thane let the anti-grav hover for a moment,
and then dropped silently downward. Branches of spruce brushed against
the plastic cabin as the anti-grav settled into the forest. It gently
settled on a thin layer of powder snow. There was nothing but the
silence of the forest, broken only by the thin sound of the wind in
the branches above.
He stepped out, breathing in the cold, crisp air. He started off
through the forest using the unfamiliar Terran compass. One hundred
twenty meters, azimuth 273 (difficult to maintain through the trees)
and he would come, according to his directions, to a tree a little
different from the rest. He continued, with the brittle snow tinkling
faintly under his feet.
Then a new sound. Once ... again ... then a repeated volley. Stoltz
guns. From the tone, hand size, tuned down below lethal potential, but
enough to stun and mutilate.
He was absolutely still for a moment. Then he began running towards
the sound, trying to minimize the noise of crunching snow under his
feet.
He swerved to pass a clump of trees and brush. As he did three things
happened. A small thrush started into the air off a branch, fluttered
a moment, then fell to the snow. A white-clad figure appeared ahead,
just at the next bend. And.... Thane wondered just what he was doing
here ... why wasn't he on Proxima? He remembered school there at
fun in elementary atomics....
Then his training took over, forcing his temporarily twisted brain to
perform rationally. As he dropped to the brittle snow and aimed his
own Stoltz, he automatically catalogued his confusion as the result of
an off-shot, a near miss. He hit the snow. The white figure was just
off his sights, but close enough. He pressed the impeller. That one
didn't miss, and it had been set on "lethal." He crept forward across
the ground. He was sure that his immediate opponent was through, but
there were others. The slithering Stoltz noises ahead increased in
volume.
He reached the white-cloaked figure. Onzarian. The eyes and mouth had
the idiot expression peculiar to a Stoltz corpse. Thane considered. He
was at a disadvantage against the snow in his blue civilian coveralls.
He quickly stripped the white cloak off the corpse and put it on as he
continued at a run.
He slowed as he approached a clearing. Not much of a clearing, not
large enough to be spotted from the air. Two figures in the Patrol
uniform were stretched out, motionless, a few meters from the tree at
the center. Two men in white cloaks were carrying a third figure
between them, just entering the pine forest at the further edge.
Thane instantly recognized the unconscious figure as Reine. At once he
started towards them, shifting the Stoltz to the lightest stun
position. That cut the range way down, even for this close-in weapon,
but it would be dangerous for Reine if he used more. Reine apparently
had had one dose already. On the run, Thane aimed at one figure he had
not seen before. Apparently it was good, for Thane was able to keep
going. Fifteen meters distant from the three figures, Thane stopped.
They were just visible through the trees. He raised his Stoltz and ...
thought of Proxima....
... he was fifteen and the dance was wonderful. She was dressed in the
new shell-white toga that was fashionable just then. It certainly set
off her jet-black hair, shining on the terrace, in the light of
Proxima's two moons....
But it wasn't black, it was blonde. And she wasn't leaning against his
arm on the terrace, she was standing in front of him, and he was lying
on the brittle snow. There was a Stoltz in her bare right hand.
She stated at him, steadily and coldly. "It is turned all the way up
now. I hope you are ready to die, Onzarian!"
* * * * *
Thane, as he recovered fully from the Stoltz shock, recognized the
tall blonde girl standing before him. Astrid Reine, Manning's daughter
and assistant. He raised himself painfully to his elbows. As he did,
he saw Astrid's knuckles tighten around the impeller.
"No, Astrid," he said. "I'm here to help you. We may still be able to
save your father."
Her hand didn't waver. The expression on her golden face was scornful.
"Do not lie so childishly! You came with the Onzarians, the agents of
Candar. You are one of them. You came to take my father."
Thane desperately gestured back the way he had come. "My footprints
are in the snow. There's an Onzarian I killed. And my anti-grav. I was
sent to protect your father."
"Who are you?"
A roaring noise came from the east and a moment later a jet cleared
the tree tops, headed south. Thane saw the ship at the edge of his
vision, but kept his eyes on Astrid. She turned her head slightly at
the sound. Slightly, but enough. Thane's tensed muscles contracted as
he sprang to his feet. She pressed the impeller--just as his left foot
kicked in a high arc and caught the side of the barrel.
The gun spun off to the edge of the clearing. "Now," he said angrily,
"don't you think we've wasted enough time? They have him now, and with
that jet they'll have enough start on us to leave the system before we
can catch them." As he spoke, the jet reappeared and slipped down low
over the trees to the west. "Hurry," he said, "they'll be on us in
seconds."