“Dabblers in evil,” Enduran responded. “They see in a return to ancient combat only an opportunity for shallow excitements. Past that they see nothing. I do. You have returned for the good of Xur and Xur alone, with an armada of Ko-Dan warships behind you. I knew you to be a megalomaniac, but I did not think you so complete a fool. Or do you really think the Ko-Dan will let you rule as you wish?”
“The Ko-Dan see in me a ruler more sympathetic to their long-term goals than the present members of the Council.”
“Their goal is nothing less than total domination of the League and all its peoples.”
“On the contrary. Your xenophobia has blinded you, Father, as it has blinded all on the Council. The Ko-Dan desire only friendship and good relations with the League worlds.” Xur spoke with assurance, convincingly. Alex began to see how he, like so many of history’s successful tyrants, could paralyze the truth with honeyed words.
“Who can blame them if the present government is unremittingly hostile to their attempts to forge a peaceful, mutually beneficial alliance?”
“An alliance which the Ko-Dan would dominate utterly. That is not an alliance; it is an invitation to place ourselves in perpetual servitude.”
“Nonetheless, I believe them,” said Xur breezily. “One seeks right-thinking allies where one must.”
“They will make what use of you they can and then cast you aside.”
“I think not. You see, Father, our aims converge. They wish a sympathetic ruler governing the worlds of the League, and I wish to rule. What could be more convenient?”
“It is convenient for you and for the Ko-Dan, not for anyone else. Leave the League in peace. Return to your exile and drink no more at the fountain of Ko-Dan flattery.”
Alex leaned close to whisper in Grig’s ear. “Exile? Hey, Grig, what’d he do?”
“He tried to seize control of the League and have himself declared dictator, absolute ruler, king, head tax collector . . . whatever the operative designation your people favor. He’s a scoundrel and half mad. That is what makes him so dangerous. If he were completely mad or sane he would not be such a threat. But he is clever, Xur is. Too clever. I am convinced he should stay in Rylan space, though . . . without a ship or suit.”
“The Ko-Dan wish only to be our friends,” Xur was saying confidently. “Why not give them a chance?”
“The Ko-Dan are the reason our ancestors created the Frontier in the first place.” Enduran’s resolve was as unshakable as his logic. “As for you, Xur, you have no greater ambition than to be a petty tyrant, a Ko-Dan satrap lording it over your own people.”
“There are those Rylans who would welcome me, Father.”
“I am aware of the deviants who follow you. Slavish sycophants reveling in the prospective return of ancient anarchy. League justice took care of them and put an end to your cult. Your followers are few and scattered.”
“League justice!” The flimsy mask of civility that Xur had affected until now was finally thrown aside as his true feelings came to the fore. For the first time Alex was exposed to the naked hatred that motivated Enduran’s renegade offspring. “The League is a refuge for weak worlds populated by weak beings who have lost the ability and the will to control their own destinies. I will return to them the legacy of their own past.”
“That past is filled with war, death, destruction. The legacy of the League is peace,” Enduran said softly. “But no matter what course is chosen, it is for the citizens of Rylos and the other worlds to choose. They will not let a dangerous and unbalanced child like yourself decide their future for them.”
Xur suddenly turned sly, his expression guarded. It was not pleasant to see.
“And yet it was this ‘child’ who caught your master spy. Or did you think, Father, that in my ‘megalomania,’ that I underestimated the abilities of the League? Far less than they underestimate me. Until now I have not revealed what I know, for I knew you would only replace him who I found out with another, whom I would have to dig out all over again.
“Now there is no longer any need to maintain the game. It is time for all deceptions to be exposed and all screens to be cast aside. Look to your own warboard.”
Against his will, Enduran turned. The main screen in the briefing chamber behind him suddenly went blank, then filled with static. A flurry of activity among those monitoring the screen failed to clear away the interference. When a picture finally emerged, it was clear it was no longer under local control.
The image was faint and hazy with distance, but still recognizable. Enduran could not repress a start as he identified the figure filling the screen. It was a Rylan, seated, restrained, and frightened. A deceptively thin helmetlike device cupped his head, holding it immobile.
“A personal friend, perhaps, Father?” said Xur’s projection. “Someone you appointed yourself? Or merely another ignorant tool of League ‘intelligence’? Not that it matters. It is enough to provide an example of how I shall treat all who oppose me.” The projection nodded and said something in a language Alex’s translator was not equipped to transcribe Ko-Dan.
The helmet shrank. A scream sounded from the war-board, accompanied by a distinct cracking sound that was clear enough even over the great distance the projection was covering. Eyes popped clear of their sockets while Rylan blood gushed in several directions to stain flesh, clothing and restraints. The helmet continued to contract long after the unfortunate Rylan’s life had fled, contracted until there was nothing left atop the imprisoned shoulders save a pinched neck that ended in raw white bone.
No one moved in the hangar or the warroom. No one spoke. Rumors of Xur’s barbarisms were well known, but it was something else to have actual evidence of them served up on a large screen in garish color. Of all the onlookers Enduran was the least shocked. He knew better than anyone else what his son was capable of.
Better than anyone else except perhaps one other.
To Alex it was a scene from a bad horror flick. Knowing it was real and not cinematic make-believe made a number of other things a lot more real. Suddenly he saw Grig as an individual, saw Enduran as a father as well as an eloquent alien. Concepts and visions which he’d only read about in school took on solidity. History was full of blood and the deeds of Xur’s emotional relations. Puritan esthetics cut them out of student texts, with the result that the horrors of the past became sanitized.
Alex saw now how wrong that was. Blood made tyrants far more real than dry descriptions of their misdeeds.
What of the history he was living now? Would it also be emasculated for its appearance in some alien text one day? Or wouldn’t it matter because the histories would all be adjusted to fit the wishes of Xur and his imperial descendants?
“Hear me, Rylans!” Xur was all dictator now, fully into the role he’d chosen for himself. “When the green moon of Galan is eclipsed, the Ko-Dan armada under my command will invade. All who rise and join my cause will be spared to prosper. All who resist will wish for a death as quick as that which you have just witnessed. Your shield projector will not save you. Your false ethics will not save you. Not even your mighty resurrected Starfighters in their antique ships will save you.
“Nothing will save you!”
Enduran’s reply was quiet but firm. “We shall see, Xur. We shall see.”
“Indeed we shall, Father, and the seeing will be most pleasant . . . for me!”
With that the projection dissipated, Xur’s laughter fading to oblivion along with his contorted face.
There was no time for pause and reflection. Even before the last light from the projection globe had disappeared, the hangar had filled with activity. Mechanics hastened through final checks. Programmers activated their systems. Activity monitors regained control of their screens. The hangar was filled with much movement, little talk, and loud orders. The lights dimmed as power was checked, shone a moment later brighter than before.
Amidst this rush of preparation for battle Centauri turned to face Alex, his
expression one of disbelief, and said, “You still wanna go, and miss all the excitement?”
The Rylan officer waited silently, curious as to how the peculiar young alien would react to this challenge. Grig waited too, expectant.
Alex noted that everyone’s eyes were on him. They were alien eyes, inhuman eyes. He thought about all he’d seen since being shanghaied from home. Home. The word flooded him with warm, comfortable memories; Louis nagging him, his mom coming home from work exhausted every night, the crickets chirping outside his bedroom, Maggie. Most of all, Maggie.
He let the uniform fall to the floor of the hangar.
From that moment on Centauri never stopped his muttering, though Alex could understand only bits of it. The old man reserved his loudest comments for the return of his payment to the waiting officer. A year’s recruiting spent slaving on a backward world, all wasted. Alex felt a little sympathy for him, but only a little.
Centauri had been dealing him from the bottom of the deck ever since he’d set eyes on him. Earlier than that, if you counted the Starfighter game as part of the deception.
He clung tenaciously to those thoughts, to his feeling of righteousness, as the car/starship lifted clear of the Rylan atmosphere and accelerated past the moon the locals called Galan .
“The little brat,” Centauri was mumbling in half a dozen languages as he prepared for the jump past light-speed. “Invent the game, disguise its origins, find the kid, drag him back here, and for what? He doesn’t want to be a Starfighter. Take me home! Okay! Home to Mommy we go. I give up. Hopeless.”
As the ship rose clear of the ecliptic, the only sound in the cockpit came from the steadily complaining Centauri. If he’d been a bit more attentive, a little less self-pitying, he might have paid more attention to his long-range scanners, might have made sure they were programmed to note things besides the known astronomical bodies which orbited Rylos’ sun.
Might even have been in a position to help.
6
At unexpected coordinates floated bodies that were not native to the Rylan system. They were all quite small, except for a single much more massive object around which they drifted.
This single immense artificial construct bristled with antennae and shafts of metal, serving as a nucleus for the lesser lights that accompanied it. Communications by means of low-power light beams passed between the monster and its numerous attendants. Orders were conveyed, questions asked, replies made. Information of import passed between the assembled ships.
The busy exchanges were in preparation for a moment which the historians on the command ship were taking care to record to the smallest detail, so that every participant would be guaranteed his or her fair due. An exchange of a more personal nature was about to occur within the bowels of the great vessel that moved ponderously among shoals of lesser ships.
The dark corridor brightened unexpectedly before dimming again. The change did not trouble the nervous, stunted creature making its way along the passage. He knew the route by heart, and could have negotiated it as efficiently in complete darkness as in the artificial light.
A shiny globe tipped the long staff he carried. The black metal orb concealed an impressive array of ultra-miniaturized electronic components behind its smooth black finish. It belonged not to the pitiful example of underlife now toting it through the innards of the great warship but to the underling’s master. A master, the underling had decided, no worse than any other.
Unpredictable, though. He preferred masters who were predictable even if they were more abusive. Better predictable abuse than the sudden rages this new master was heir to. There seemed no way to anticipate his abrupt shifts in mood. Privately, the underling was convinced that his new master was more than a little insane.
That did not matter, however. All that mattered was that the real masters, the Ko-Dan, treated this new one in their midst as an equal. It was not for the underling to question this. Only for him to obey. That was all any of the Ko-Dan’s subject races could do. The underling had served for a long time.
But audiences with his new master still made him queasy.
Two guards stood stolidly outside the command center. Their presence was more a matter of ceremony than security, since it was ludicrous to imagine a threat to command originating from inside the command ship. But the Ko-Dan were fond of their rituals and traditions, and so he was made to wait near the portal while the words were spoken.
“What seek you here, underling?” asked one of the massive sentries.
“My master, the Emperor Xur.” He waved the black metal staff. “He ordered me to bring to him his scepter of office.”
Other ears overheard the byplay. The ritual was shortened by the Ko-Dan commander himself as he spoke from his position inside the center.
“What transpires?” inquired the noble Kril.
“An underling, Commander,” said the other guard. “He carries a weapon.”
“Scepter of office,” the underling protested, keeping his voice deferential.
Another figure, tall and imperious of manner, moved to stand next to Kril. The newcomer looked out of place within the Ko-Dan command center, but he didn’t feel out of place. He found his alien surroundings quite congenial.
He waved casually toward the doorway. “Yes, I sent for my scepter. Let him enter.”
The senior guard of the pair ignored the directive and looked hesitantly toward his Commander. Kril gestured curtly and the guard responded by stepping aside and slipping on the safety lock on his own weapon.
Wishing he were anywhere else but in this den of power, the underling advanced, holding the scepter out before him. Xur the Rylan, son of Enduran of the League Council, accepted the scepter with obvious pleasure. He juggled it in both hands, luxuriating in the weight and feel of the gleaming black metal.
When he’d finished toying with it he grandly dismissed the underling who’d fetched it for him. That poor creature bowed repeatedly as he retreated from the command center as fast as courtesy permitted, greatly relieved at having escaped without a reprimand or a beating.
Balancing the scepter on one shoulder, Xur turned to face the expressionless Commander standing nearby.
“A shape and insignia that should be familiar to you, Kril. I made certain the pattern followed precisely that of the staff carried by your own Emperor. Is the likeness not remarkable?”
“Excellent Ko-Dan manufacture,” Kril muttered. He did not care for these posturings, which the renegade Rylan tried to turn into audiences instead of discussions.
“Yes, it certainly is. There is much to be said for a work force that obeys the dictates of its superiors unquestioningly. That sort of devotion has heretofore been alien to Rylos and the other worlds of the League, but we’ll change that, won’t we?”
“Yes, we will,” agreed the Commander.
Other eyes watched; other ears listened. Finally one senior officer could stand it no longer and began muttering dark threats by way of his subordinate. Kril noted the grumbling but chose to ignore it so long as the grumbler remained discreet. He could hardly blame the officer for expressing aloud the feelings of many of his comrades.
To his Rylan counterpart he said only, “It takes more than a scepter to rule, Xur, even a backward world like Rylos.”
“Backward, yes. So backward you would not think of approaching it so openly were it not for the aid of my backward self and my backward allies.” Kril tensed but again chose not to respond. Xur added, “But you are right. It does take more than a scepter to rule. After all, what is a scepter? Nothing more than a harmless standard of office.”
He touched a concealed switch. A thin shaft of green light emerged from the scepter’s black globe. It was the visual manifestation of a high-powered sonic needle, strong enough to heat the air around it. It could cut through just about anything. Xur waved it around the room with disconcerting casualness, but Kril never flinched.
The voice of the outraged senior officer became audible. “
How long must we be forced to endure this fool . . .!”
Kril whirled to pin the officer with his eyes, making him shrink back inside his psyche. Realizing he’d overstepped his bounds, the officer executed a voiceless apology. However much the Ko-Dan officers disliked taking orders from, and suffering the antics of, the renegade Rylan, they were compelled to do so unless Xur’s granted rank was reduced. For the moment, he drew his strength directly from Imperial Decree. If not the person, that rank had to be given full respect.
Everyone in the command room was conscious of this silent exchange and its import for all of them. The officer accepted his rebuke silently. It was to be only a momentary humiliation, however. The word they had been waiting for since they’d first arrived on the outskirts of the Rylan system was passed from Research.
“We have a break in the energy shield defending Rylos,” a technician announced. Immediately the confrontation between Commander and officer was forgotten amidst general excitement.
“How long will the break last?” Kril inquired.
The technician communicated with his superiors in the command ship’s laboratory section, then replied, “Insufficient data for conclusive evaluation, Commander.”
“Is it weakened sufficiently to permit an attack?”
“Yes sir. Countershield believes they can suppress its effects until we can destroy the projector itself.”
Excitement gave way to methodical preparations. “Are the assault schedule and squadrons ready?”
“They’ve been ready for many cycles, Commander,” came the reply from Logistics.
“Then the time has come.” Kril’s eyes glistened with anticipation. This would be a moment the recorders would permatize in special script. “All sections prepare for first assault. Mass driver activation if . . .”
The sound of a fist slamming against a console cut off the rest of the Commander’s order. An enraged Xur glared at the aliens surrounding him. Ko-Dan they might be but in this time and place he was master, by decree of their own Emperor. He would not see that authority usurped. Especially not at this critical moment. He wanted to savor it, as he had savored it in his own mind for many long, frustrating, empty years. No alien interlopers were going to deprive him of that long-awaited pleasure.