9 Tales of Space and Time Read online

  “No, thanks to the Star People, and some ingenuity of my own, that won’t happen. Stop! If you move again, you are a dead man!”

  The Duke took another step forward, quite calmly. “You cannot be permitted to complete your work; you are more than the fool I thought. You are a Twisted.

  “There is no weapon that has mind of its own, to direct itself to kill enemies and preserve friends; that is for the skilled and trained mind of a man. I know you, Second; you would not have the patience to learn the handling of any weapon well. You cannot use those Star Weapons.”

  The Duke strode steadily forward. Second’s left-hand pistol roared. The Duke barely started and walked into the cloud of gray-black smoke as the second pistol roared. He staggered back a half-step, his face grimaced, and he came on again. The ball had passed through the flesh of his right arm.

  Second’s face became gradually blank and white as his magic weapons failed him. Then with a shriek of rage and desperation he drew his dagger and hurled himself at the Duke.

  The Duke did not bother to draw his. Four quick movements of his highly trained and thoroughly experienced body were adequate. The dagger flew from Second’s broken hand; Second himself spun, half falling, past the older man—and dropped to twitch only slightly, his neck broken by a powerful chopping blow from the Duke’s heavily muscled left forearm.

  The Duke straightened slowly with bitter eyes. He pulled a rolled strip of white cloth from a pouch at his waist and skillfully bandaged the bleeding slash in his right arm. That done, he looked once more at his dead son, and called out, “Lieutenant!”

  The white-faced guardsman came from the adjoining room. “My lord?”

  “Second was executed for betrayal of the Customs and for disobedience of military orders. You will arrange for the proper disposal of his body and begin preparations for a nonmilitary funeral.

  “Lieutenant Smith’s-son will be your new captain; I shall notify him at once.

  “If there is any need to consult me, wait my return; I must go to the Temple.

  “Do you hear and acknowledge?”

  “I hear and acknowledge, my lord.” The lieutenant saluted hesitantly.

  The Duke nodded curtly, turned, and left the room. Quick hand signals picked up the men who had awaited him in drawn-faced silence. Behind him, the young guardsman, shuddering slightly, looked down at the still faintly smoking pistols on the floor, then toward the corridor where the retreating footsteps of the Duke echoed firmly as he marched toward the castle courtyard.

  Another young guardsman slipped into the room. “They—they didn’t work?” he asked, shaken.

  The lieutenant shook his head. “They worked—but not against a man like our Defender. He walked right into that demon-smoke, and the awful things did no more than scratch him.” He looked down at the pistols. He was silent for a minute or two. Then he picked them up carelessly and threw them into a corner of the room. “I guess there’s no magic weapon that can meet a real man’s courage.

  “Help me move him to the couch in the room there.”

  The old priest met the Duke in the fountain room this time. “I greet you, my Nephew, and I sorrow with you,” he said.

  The Duke bowed his head slightly. “I thank you, Uncle, but it is not in mourning I have come. For mourning I have no time.” He did not ask how the priest knew of Second’s death.

  “ ‘The dead we do not mourn while the sword is swinging’,” he quoted. “There is a problem beyond that of Second.”

  “Come with me, my Nephew.” The old priest led him into the inner room and gestured to him to seat himself on the cushions. “The problem of the Star People is not so simple as the attacks of Duke Bluelake or Duke Stonebridge. Here we have no Customs, no Laws, no Rules.”

  The Duke rested his forehead in his hands and rocked slowly from side to side, seated tailor-fashion on the cushions. “They have a feel of being children, Uncle. I do not know, now, whether they are vicious and twisted children, as Second was—what twisted him, my Uncle? What twisted him, oh God?—or whether they are good children, playing with people as our children play with toys. They are smart, they are immensely smarter than we are. Yet they are not wise, Uncle. And they have such mighty magic! How can they be so unwise and yet in some ways so supernally wise? How many life-works of wisdom-search must it have taken to devise so much as the door of that starship, the door that closes itself with a humming whisper, and no man’s hand on it?

  “Yet the best they see is to destroy the life-works of a thousand generations! Why, Uncle, why?”

  The old man shook his head slowly. “I am not God, my Nephew, and I do not know all of God’s attributes. I cannot understand the attributes of God they worship, and so I cannot reach them in that way. I have tried; that you know.

  “There is no problem that does not have a solution; some are known only to God, however. This problem, though, you and I, who are not God, must solve. And we must do it in a human way, for never can we do it in the way of things and weapons; they are immeasurably our superiors in that. We cannot do it in the way of magic; that is God’s way, and for reasons we do not know, He has brought them to us.

  “But we are intelligent entities, and they are intelligent entities; there must be the path by which we reach solution.

  “If they are twisted, if they are vicious, then our case is near-hopeless—we must scatter our people and attack them howsoever we can, by night and in stealth, defying all Customs because no Custom can be trusted with the Twisted.

  “I do not think they are twisted; I think they are unwise and somewhat unheeding children, as do you. Then it is so we must meet them.”

  The Duke slowly straightened. “Then that is for me to do, alone.”

  The old man nodded. “If they strive themselves—and no people devises such a vehicle without a mighty effort—then they must respect striving, however blunted its effort may be. Otherwise, their own striving is a futile thing, not worthy of their own respect, of no value, and no satisfaction to them.

  “If they make valiant efforts against great danger, they must respect valiant efforts against great danger. And even they must face some danger in their incredible ship, when they sail the heavens.

  “And no man who will give his life for a cause he believes good can demean the cause of another man who will give his life for a cause he believes good.”

  The Duke stood up slowly. “Uncle, is First a good man?”

  “Yes, nephew. He is sound; he knows he is not wise.”

  “Good,” said the Duke, tightening his belt slightly. “Then I must die.”

  “Good-by, son of my well-loved sister,” said the priest.

  “Good-by, Protector of Wisdom.” The Duke bowed formally, turned, and strode out of the room.

  “Hey, gang! Here comes the Duke and three of his men!” Blackie called from the control room. “A formal visit?”

  Wainwright and Carl Seaman came from the computer room, Gay Firestone from the communications room where she’d been working on some recordings of native speech. Bowman clattered up from the lower level where the compact machine shop was.

  “I don’t like this,” said Gay. “It’s contrary to their Customs, and if he violates his Customs, something’s happened. What should we do?”

  Blackie and Carl shrugged and answered by strapping on neurodampers and starting for the door.

  “What’s up?” asked Bowman.

  “The Duke’s paying a call,” Wainwright nodded toward the bubble dome. “Gay says he wouldn’t do that according to his Customs.”

  Bowman looked out silently for a moment. “He’s leaving his three men behind. Gay, do they have combat-of-champions in their local Customs?”

  “Why—yes but, but why . . .”

  “Two,” said Bull sourly. “Betcha we’ve just killed another man.”

  Wainwright spun and faced him. “What do you mean, Bowman?”

  “That I have a nasty hunch the Duke is coming to settle a score. Tha
t he has now killed his son, in defense of the things he believes in—even if you folks don’t—and has come to challenge us to single combat. He wants us to move out; he wants to make it emphatic.

  “What would you do, Hal, if the Wake-makers you were talking about came in with equipment you couldn’t even imagine, and you most earnestly wanted them to move out?

  “The poor old boy’s really got himself a problem, with us here, and not being a field-force physicist, he has to handle it in the only terms possible to him.”

  Gay was gnawing at her lip. “Hal . . . he . . . he may be right. We’d better do something.”

  Bull sighed. “I’ll go out with Carl; maybe there’s something we can do. If he insists on private combat, maybe I could get him to agree to a wrestling match. Sometimes the more-muscle-than-brains business can come in handy; I’m fairly good at judo, and we might be able to settle things afterward.”

  “No,” snapped Wainwright. “No chances. God knows what sort of tricks they might consider good business in the mayhem-and-murder line here. We don’t do things that way, and I don’t think we should. But go ahead and see if you can work out something. Damn—I don’t like this.”

  Carl was silently standing by the lock. As Bull joined him he glanced at him with a worried and uncertain frown. “I don’t either. And Bull . . . I don’t know what the score is, I guess. You . . . hell, if you’re right on this, and that’s why the Duke’s coming . . .”

  “Stow it. We got work to do.” Bowman punched the lock controls.

  Duke Stonehill stood waiting some twenty yards from the lock. His three men sat their horses, holding the Duke’s mount, some fifty yards further out.

  His blocky, powerful figure remained motionless as they descended the lock ramp. Then he strode two paces forward, looked from one to the other, and spoke. “You are the one called Bow-man.

  “Hear and acknowledge! This day I have killed my son, because he became twisted through dealing with you of the Star People. He turned against me, his father, and sought to end my work, using his magic weapons.

  “Twelve days past I was forced to execute Ishtock, the smith, who was a good man and a good worker, because of the corruption of his contact with you, the Star People.

  “Therefore I, the Defender of the People of Stonehill, demand that you pay indemnity to the Temple of Stonehill, for the damages you have done, and that you leave forthwith to your proper realm of the Stars.

  “And I do declare that I shall forbid any one of the Star People entry into Stonehill or onto the fields of Stonehill, after the rising of the next sun. Your ship must be gone!

  “The indemnity to be paid the Temple shall be settled with the Protector of Wisdom; that is not my affair.

  “If any of you seek to deny this ruling, I stand challenged!” The Duke drew his sword and held it vertically in front of him, his legs planted wide and solidly.

  “Well, Carl? Do we leave?” Bowman asked. “Do we pay indemnity?”

  “We don’t leave,” said Gay’s voice, sharply, from the top of the ramp, “and we don’t pay indemnity. We didn’t kill those men; it was his bull-headed refusal to allow any progress that killed them, damn him!”

  “Defender of the People,” Carl answered, “we have harmed no one; you, not we, have killed two good men.

  “By your refusal to allow us to teach anything of science to your people, you are hindering their progress. By murdering the students who did try to learn, you, not we, are causing harm!”

  “I stand challenged!” snapped the Duke. He swung the sword to horizontal position, pointed directly at Carl. “I demand satisfaction.”

  “Defender, we do not fight over disagreements; we have grown beyond that, and we refuse to do so. No one of us will battle you . . .”

  The Duke started forward, his sword aimed directly for the center of Carl’s chest. “Hah! We shall see!”

  Suddenly his entire body jerked, his arms flying up, his body twisting in a violent paroxysm—then he fell limply to the ground. Gay holstered the neurodamper. “I’m quite accurate with these things; I had lots of practice on violent patients. He’s acting like any other violent case that’s been deprived of his dream world. Eventually, they learn they cannot get anywhere with violence, and start behaving.”

  She ran lightly down the ramp, walked over to the Duke, and examined him briefly. “He’ll be out of it in thirty minutes, if he’s anything like our own people. Have his men take him home.”

  Bowman picked up the fallen Duke, after thrusting his dropped sword into its scabbard, and carried him over to where the three men were standing, white-faced and restless. They grew more tense as Bowman approached.

  From the ramp, Gay and Carl watched intently, with neurodampers ready-aimed.

  “The Duke is well,” Bowman explained carefully. “He has been made to sleep for a little time. In half an hour or so, he will awaken, feeling a little dazed and with a little headache. This will pass in a few hours.

  “Tell him, then, that Bow-man suggested that he has time and a chance to think again of what he does.”

  Bowman carefully lifted the Duke into his saddle, as easily as though he weighed no more than a child, while two of the guardsmen lashed him to his saddle with an expertness that bespoke practice.

  Bowman waited till they rode off before turning back to the ship. At the foot of the ramp he made a slight mock bow. “Two,” he repeated.

  “He’s a violent-minded old pirate!” snapped Gay. “He killed his own son rather than consider any progress for his people!”

  “I’ve got to admit,” said Carl ruefully, “that that particular son needed killing, if ever I saw one that did. But what do we do now? Give it up as a bad job?”

  “I won’t be stopped by that stubborn fool.” Gay spoke sharply. “He is an extreme rigidity case, utterly unable to consider his own delusional pattern. And because he has his people so cowed, we can’t get any of them to do any thinking of their own.”

  Bowman looked at her thoughtfully. “Er, Gay, some people can’t think for themselves. They really can’t. Any more than you can acknowledge that your refusal to soar off across the countryside is due to stubbornness on your part. How do you know the Paradans can think for themselves yet?”

  “Any race that can build up even a feudal culture obviously thinks!” she replied. “What in the world makes you ask such a question?”

  Bowman shrugged. “My experience, I guess. The race doesn’t think, as far as I can make out; people do. Individuals. Geniuses. But geniuses have a bad tendency to think in terms of ‘I am a person. I think, therefore, I exist. Other people exist, also. Therefore they think, too.’ ” Bowman shook his head slowly. “I think the race just knows, and only some of the individuals think. Really.”

  “I can’t believe that the Paradans are that stupid,” Gay said stubbornly, as she turned back into the ship. “Even the Duke ought to be bright enough to know he won’t get anywhere attacking us.”

  Carl followed her, rubbing at his chin thoughtfully.

  “I wonder what happened between the Duke and Second? The kid had two loaded pistols, I know,” Carl said as they entered the control room again.

  “How much practice had he had shooting them?” Blackie asked.

  “Hmm—that’s a thought. He’d fired them about twenty times, but mostly to get used to the noise they made. If he fired while the Duke was fifty yards off . . .”

  “Oh, he probably became hysterical when his father started threatening him, and shot them off in all directions,” Gay plunked herself heavily on the chart table. “These Paradans either have no drive at all or turn out to be so stubbornly one-track-minded that they refuse to learn.”

  “Maybe we should try teaching the Duke himself?” Bowman asked.

  “Impossible!” Gay snapped. “He has what he wants, and absolutely refuses to budge. It would take three or four years of patient humoring and gradual persuasion to get anywhere with that man.”

  “Maybe
if we just went back home and put in a report, a contact group could be sent out to work on a longer-term basis, and get somewhere,” Bowman suggested.

  Gay Firestone was tapping her foot against the floor, her head bent back, looking up at the star-field chart set in the ceiling. “I wonder . . . what we really need is a student, a young man genuinely interested in learning. I’ve been wondering about the Temple acolytes. If we got one who was not too deeply indoctrinated but was basically oriented toward understanding, and if we could protect him for a while . . .”

  “Anybody would be a better student than Second was,” Carl said, “But I hate the thought of going through that business again.”

  “Maybe your ex-students did, too—but they won’t be going through it again.” Bowman commented. “Is there any bag-limit on this expedition, or do we just keep it up till we run out of Paradans?”

  Gay looked at him with hate in her eyes.

  “You know, Mr. Bowman, it occurs to me that you are the only member of this expedition who did not take the orientation tests, the only one whose personality orientation has not been tested.” Gay paused a moment. “As a matter of fact, I believe that, since you graduated from college, you have never had anything but political appointment jobs.”

  Bowman leaned against the door frame and shook his head slowly. “No, Dr. Firestone, that’s not quite correct; there are two of us who have not had their personalities tested by the psychological examinations.”

  “Two?” she snapped, standing straighter suddenly. “Who else hasn’t?”

  “You, Dr. Firestone.” Bowman glanced toward the three other men. “You took the examinations, of course, but you are a highly trained and highly skilled psychologist yourself. For you, who know well the methods of constructing psychological examinations, the theories behind the test structures, the tests could only test your knowledge of psychological theory—not your personality. You know too much about test structure in that field and would naturally solve the test on the basis of that knowledge.