The Weight of Worlds

  There’s the rub, Kirk thought. He knew they were venturing onto dangerous ground. He answered as honestly and cautiously as he could.

  “Let me make myself clear. We respect your Truth, and we are open to learning more about it in a free exchange of ideas, but the Federation is home to many beliefs, peoples, planets, and philosophies. There’s no guarantee that your Truth will be accepted above all others.”

  He hoped that would be good enough for the God-King.

  He suspected it wouldn’t be.

  “It is not our Truth,” Jaenab said vehemently. “It is the only Truth. There is none other.”

  Kirk went out on a limb. “Perhaps we have our own truths.”

  “Deceiver!” Jaenab accused him. “You say your Federation wants only peace, but word has only now come to me that, aided by your very starship, the newly adopted people of Ephrata IV have risen up in revolt and taken arms against the Crusade!”

  Kirk felt a surge of hope, if not for himself, then for his ship and the imperiled world he had left behind.

  “Wait. Are you saying that the Ephratans are no longer under your control?”

  “For now, perhaps. But do not deceive yourself into believing that the Crusade can be halted so readily. Even if Ephrata IV is lost to us, we can always begin anew on another of your worlds.” He shrugged beneath his royal cloak. “It is no small matter to open a portal between our realms, but with the End of this creation approaching rapidly, we need not put aside resources for the future. Now, in these final days, it is our sacred duty to bring the Truth to as many of your worlds as possible . . . even if we must bankrupt ourselves to do so!”

  Kirk believed him. In his experience, the scary thing about people who truly believed that the End was near was that they felt they had nothing to lose. He could easily see Jaenab sparing no expense and effort to “save” the Federation in the name of his unshakable Truth. Whatever was happening on Ephrata IV was just a minor setback. The Crusade was going to keep on coming.

  Vlisora was right, he realized. He needs to be stopped.

  “Sorry. Starfleet isn’t going to stand for that . . . and neither am I.”

  Scandalized gasps greeted Kirk’s insolence. Jaenab merely nodded, however, as though he had expected nothing less.

  “Your own words condemn you,” he said, pronouncing judgment. He raised his already rotund voice. “Have this ‘God-Slayer’ taken to a place of execution and have the Truth crush him before the eyes of the world!”

  Kirk wasn’t sure exactly what that entailed, but he guessed it wasn’t going to be pretty. Luckily, he had a better idea.

  “Not so fast!” he shouted before the Crusaders could drag him away. He pointed dramatically at the looming bas-relief depicting the ancient contest. “I demand trial by ordeal . . . against the God-King himself!”

  The gasps from the court were even louder this time. Even Jaenab was taken aback. It took him a moment to formulate a response.

  “That privilege is not for such as you! You are not even Ialatl!”

  “But isn’t the Crusade all about bringing your Truth and your ways to my people? If your hallowed traditions do not apply to us, then why bother? Why cross to my universe at all?”

  Jaenab struggled visibly to find an answer. “Because, you see . . . because . . .”

  “The Truth must apply to all peoples,” Kirk declaimed, turning the God-King’s own words against him. “Or it is only your Truth, not the Truth.” He knew he had Jaenab on the spot, so he pressed his point home, making sure the whole throne room was listening. “You say you’re all about the old ways and traditions. Prove it. Let your revered ancestors decide my fate . . . or are you afraid that you don’t truly know their will as well as you think you do?”

  “Divinity!” the captain of the guard cried out. “I volunteer to compete against the infidel in your name! Name me your champion!”

  Forget it, Kirk thought. That doesn’t work for me.

  He kept the pressure squarely on the throne. “What’s the matter? Is the God-King afraid to face the God-Slayer?”

  The spines around Jaenab’s face stiffened. They flared outward in fury. He glared down at Kirk from his lofty perch.

  “You know not whom you challenge!”

  “Then show me!” Kirk dared him. “Show your people that no mere infidel is a match for the true God-King!”

  He needed to make it impossible for Jaenab to back down. He prayed he wasn’t just tempting immediate retribution instead.

  “Divinity,” the guard began. “Do not let this foreign creature provoke—”

  “Enough!” Jaenab roared. He placed his hands against the sides of his crown. “Let all Ialatl know that the God-King has accepted the infidel’s challenge . . . in order to demonstrate now and for all time that the Truth cannot be defeated!”

  He twisted a turquoise ring on his scepter, and his throne descended back onto the dais. Jaenab stood, shedding his cumbersome cloak, and handed his crown over to a waiting priestess, who placed it reverently on the seat of the throne. Kirk guessed that it was too precious to risk in any sort of strenuous challenge.

  Probably one of a kind, he thought.

  “So be it.” The God-King posed before his throne with his hands on his hips. He strode down a short flight of steps to confront Kirk on the floor of the throne room. He was at least a foot taller than the captive Starfleet officer, not counting the spines framing his imperious visage. “You will have your trial, ‘God-Slayer,’ although I suspect the contest will be scarcely worth my time.”

  He could be right, Kirk thought. It occurred to him to that he might have bitten more than he could chew. Certainly, Jaenab didn’t seem all that concerned about the outcome of the match. Kirk couldn’t help peeking again at that grisly panel depicting the loser of the trial relinquishing his head. How could he expect to beat the God-King at his own game? He barely knew what he had let himself in for.

  “To the arena!” Jaenab declared. “And the judgment of my divine ancestors!”

  Kirk hoped he hadn’t just outsmarted himself.

  NINETEEN

  The ball flew at Kirk’s face.

  He batted it away with his forearm, creating an equal and opposite motion that sent him flying backward into the glowing green bars of the cage. The impact momentarily knocked the breath out of him.

  “What’s the matter, God-Slayer?” Jaenab taunted. “Are you afraid of a mere ball?”

  Kirk’s trial by ordeal was under way in the arena, which was located only a few city blocks from the royal temple. He found himself inside a floating geodesic sphere, roughly twenty meters in diameter. The sphere consisted of a lattice of incandescent metal bars that generated a zero-g environment inside the sphere. A huge open-air stadium/amphitheater surrounded the levitating cage. Tens of thousands of cheering Ialatl were packed into the stands, while vigilant Crusaders, armed with lances, stood guard over the scene from elevated watchtowers. Kirk saw little chance of escaping the arena, even if he could somehow squeeze through the narrow gaps between the bars, a feat that would challenge even one of the boneless contortionists of Dloggia Prime.

  He grabbed onto a bar to keep from bouncing off the cage back into the weightless interior of the sphere. Taking a moment to get his bearings, he tracked the errant ball as it ricocheted wildly inside the cage as though in an antique pinball machine. The ball was made of a translucent rubbery substance that was currently tinted silver. A polished humanoid skull formed the core of the ball, giving it heft while providing a stark reminder of the stakes. As Kirk understood it, the skull belonged to the last Ialatl who had lost such a trial.

  “What does your skull look like, foreigner?” Jaenab kept his own eyes on the ball. “I look forward to seeing it preserved in rubber!”

  The God-King clung to the bars on the other side of the arena. It was necessary to occasionally stop and hang on to something in order to control one’s movements in zero g. Otherwise, you risked bouncing around as randomly
as the ball.

  “I prefer my skull with skin on it,” Kirk replied. “If that’s all right with you.”

  Both contestants were bare-chested, something Kirk appreciated, considering the sweltering heat of the morning. The match had barely begun and yet he was already dripping with sweat. A silver sash was tied around his waist to indicate that he was the defendant in the trial. Kirk noticed that Jaenab, who wore a satiny black sash, appeared perfectly comfortable in the heat, enjoying a serious hometown advantage. The God-King was used to this environment, not to mention this challenge.

  Shades of the Koon-ut-kal-if-fee, Kirk thought. He flashed back briefly to his life-or-death duel with Spock a few years back. He had been at a serious disadvantage there as well. Too bad McCoy wasn’t on hand to whip up another sneaky potion this time around.

  A circular copper hoop rotated slowly at the center of the arena, revolving on its axis at a rate of one rotation every two seconds. The levitating hoop also expanded and contracted like a pulsar, going from more than two meters to just forty centimeters in diameter. At its most compact, the ring was too small to permit the ball to pass through. That was not an accident.

  The caroming ball came within reach of Kirk, and he redirected it with a backhanded swat. The ball flew toward the spinning hoop, but arrived a second too late; instead of passing through the hoop, it collided with the copper edge, which was now facing it. It bounced off the ring, going back into play.

  “Damn,” Kirk muttered. “Almost.”

  The rules of the contest had been explained to him. The object was very simple: bat the ball through the hoop, using any part of your body, while trying to prevent your opponent from doing the same. What made it tricky was the constant rotation and periodic contractions of the goal, along with the total absence of gravity, of course.

  Could be worse, Kirk thought. At least there were no edged weapons or fire pits involved, and the lack of gravity did not intimidate him. Zero-g training exercises were mandatory back at the Academy, and he had always excelled at them. Maybe he had a chance at victory, despite the fact that he was playing the God-King’s game.

  At the moment, the ball was still tinted silver, matching Kirk’s sash, but then Jaenab kicked off from the side of the cage to intercept the ball. As he struck it with the flat of his hand, the ball instantly turned as black as his sash, indicating that the next point would be assigned to him, unless Kirk came into contact with the ball first and turned it silver again. The darkened rubber obscured the skull within, but it was still visible through the inky translucence.

  The audience roared in approval; there was no question as to whom they were rooting for. The deafening shouts and huzzahs of at least fifty thousand voices cheered the God-King on. Kirk’s only rooting section consisted of a few hundred captured rebels who were there to witness his inevitable defeat. A shimmering gravity field confined the shackled prisoners to one small sliver of the stadium, under the scornful gaze of several Crusaders. Unlike their jubilant kin, the downcast prisoners viewed the contest as they would their own executions, which probably weren’t far off. Kirk spotted Lasem among them. Apparently, the rebel leader had survived the battle in the tunnels, only to end up in the hands of the Crusade.

  At least it’s not his skull in the ball, Kirk thought.

  That grisly possibility had crossed his mind.

  He watched anxiously as the blackened ball zoomed toward the hoop. Jaenab’s aim was true, but his timing off; the ball reached the hoop just as it contracted, rendering the goal too small to pass through. The ball rebounded off the twirling ring instead, much to the disappointment of the spectators, who let out a collective groan.

  Kirk did not share the crowd’s dismay. The winner of the bout was the first player to score four points, one for each finger on an Ialatl hand. Jaenab was already one up on Kirk, having scored an early goal while Kirk was still getting his feet wet. The God-King needed only three more points to win the trial—and condemn Kirk to death.

  That was a close one, Kirk thought. Too close.

  For himself, he had more than one reason for wanting to win. Beyond his own survival, which was incentive enough, he also hoped that a victory would shake Jaenab’s divine confidence and perhaps make him more amenable to reason. Or, failing that, there was always the chance that a public defeat might weaken the God-King’s standing with his own worshippers, to the detriment of the Crusade.

  Kirk could see it happening. He knew from tragic experience just how quickly a populace could turn against a god who proved all too mortal. “Kirok” had learned that the hard way on a planet many light-years from here, and so had poor Miramanee. . . .

  He shoved the painful memories away to keep his head in the game. The inky ball was up for grabs, rebounding wildly around the arena. Kirk tried to anticipate where it would bounce next. Spock, no doubt, would have found this a fascinating exercise in spatial geometry and kinetics; Kirk just had to rely on his own eye and instincts. He wished that he had spent more time playing billiards in zero g.

  The trick was to think in three dimensions. . . .

  He pushed off from the bars, flying through the hot, muggy air on an intercept course with the ball, while keeping one eye on the revolving hoop. If he timed this right, he might be able to propel it through the hoop with a well-aimed kick. All he needed was speed, coordination, and a hefty portion of luck.

  Let’s even out the score, he thought.

  But, before he could shoot for the goal, Jaenab came zooming for the ball as well. His hip deflected the ball, even as his elbow jabbed Kirk sharply in the side. The collision sent them bouncing away from each other. Kirk grunted in pain.

  “My apologies, God-Slayer,” Jaenab called out insincerely. He smirked at Kirk as they drifted off in different directions. “I fear you got between the ball and me.”

  “Right,” Kirk muttered. His side, which was already black-and-blue from his rough treatment at the hands of the Crusaders, throbbed unpleasantly. He didn’t buy the phony apology for a nanosecond. That wasn’t the first time that Jaenab had “accidentally” clipped him in midair. Actual combat was against the rules, but there seemed to be plenty of latitude regarding physical contact, especially where Jaenab was concerned. Kirk seriously doubted whether anyone was likely to call foul on the God-King himself.

  Fine, he thought. If that’s how the game is played . . .

  But while he was still recovering from the collision, Jaenab expertly twisted in the air and headed the black ball through the hoop. The audience rejoiced, shouting their lungs out in praise of their God-King. They jumped to their feet and threw their hands in the air. Trumpets blared. Banners bearing a silver scrilatyl against a black background waved back and forth. Jaenab threw out his arms in benediction, taking a moment to acknowledge the adoration of his subjects. His golden mane spread out in zero g, the weightless tentacles framing his regal face like an organic halo. Even without his crown, he looked very much the God-King.

  A black kite was launched from a watchtower. It rose above the arena to join an equally ebon kite that was already twisting in the breeze. The satiny black kites, which were as large as or larger than an adult Ialatl, served to mark the score. At the moment, there were no silver kites to be seen.

  Two to zero, Kirk thought. He saw the game slipping away from him. Jaenab only needed two more goals to win—and claim Kirk’s head.

  Not good, Kirk thought.

  Sensing victory, Jaenab chased after the ball. Deftly using the bars to control his momentum and direction, he met up with the ball and kicked it toward the goal. The audience whooped excitedly, anticipating another score, while, on the opposite side of the hoop, Kirk watched with alarm. The speeding ball was right on track to pass through the goal at exactly the right angle and instant. Defeat was only seconds away. There was no way he could get around the hoop in time to block the shot.

  So he dived through the hoop instead. Launching himself like a photon torpedo, he flew through the goal
with his arms stretched out in front of him. His balled fists slammed into the ball, turning it silver, before it could it pass through the hoop, which contracted behind Kirk, nearly snaring his ankles. The ball zoomed back at Jaenab, who had to duck to avoid getting hit in the face. The ball hit the cage behind him before flying back into the arena.

  The audience gasped in surprise. Kirk gathered that diving through the hoop was not a conventional move. No surprise there, he thought, considering the risk of being caught in a contraction. You wouldn’t want the hoop to close up on you.

  “You cannot do that!” Jaenab protested. “The ball goes through the hoop, not the players!”

  “Is it against the rules?” Kirk asked.

  He had realized early on that creative cheating, of the Kobiyashi Maru variety, was not really an option here. The Ialatl took their ancient rules and traditions far too seriously for that; any flagrant violations would surely forfeit the game and his head. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t look for a loophole or two. . . .

  “No,” Jaenab admitted. “Not technically. But—”

  “But nothing.” Kirk’s momentum carried him across the arena. Open palms met the bars of the cage, absorbing the impact. “Your move.”

  He took some satisfaction from having dumbfounded Jaenab, but he knew that this trick alone was not enough to win him the match. He was still two points down, and Jaenab was already closing in on victory.

  I can’t just play defense, Kirk thought. I need to get some points on the board.

  Now silver in hue, the ball was still ricocheting around the arena. Kirk waited impatiently for an opportunity to send it off in the right direction. Carrying the ball was illegal, so he couldn’t just grab it and dive through the goal again. Kirk braced his heels against the bars, calculated the ball’s trajectory, and pushed off into empty space.

  The more shots I take, he reasoned, the better my odds of getting one through the goal.

  The ball whooshed toward him. Kirk glanced about, on guard against another sneak attack from Jaenab, but spotted his opponent floating in midair on the other side of the spinning hoop. Kirk seized the moment and swung at the ball with both fists.