... of Gautama Buddha, Kung Fu-Tse, Rabbi Hillel, Jesus the Christ, Rumi
... Socrates, Newton, Hokusai, Jefferson, Gauss, Beethoven, Einstein,
Ulfgeir, Manuel the Great, Manuel the Wise--would you let your war lords
turn these instruments to their own vile ends? No!"
And Flandry understood.
Did Aycharaych, half blinded by his dead, see what he had given away?
"Dominic," he whispered hastily, shakily, "I've used you ill, as I've
used many. It was from no will of mine. Oh, true, an art, a sport--yours
too--but we had our services, you to a civilization you know is dying, I
to a heritage I know can abide while this sun does. Who has the better
right?" He held forth unsubstantial hands.
"Dominic, stay. We'll think how to keep your ships off and save
Chereion--"
Almost as if he were again the machine that condemned his son, Flandry
said, "I'd have to lure my company into some kind of trap. Merseia would
take the planet back, and the help it gives. Your shadow show would go
on. Right?"
"Yes. What are a few more lives to you? What is Terra? In ten thousand
years, who will remember the empires? They can remember you, though, who
saved Chereion for them."
Candle flames stood around a coffin. Flandry shook his head. "There've
been too many betrayals in too many causes." He wheeled. "Men, we're
returning."
"Aye, sir." The replies shuddered with relief.
Aycharaych's eidolon brought fingers together as if he prayed. Flandry
touched his main grav switch. Thrust pushed harness against breast. He
rose from the radiant city, into the waning murky day. Chill flowed
around him. Behind floated his robot-encased men.
"Brigate!" bawled Vymezal. "Beware!"
Around the topmost tower flashed a score of javelin shapes. Firebeams
leaped out of their nozzles. Remote-controlled flyer guns, Flandry knew.
Does Aycharaych still hope, or does he only want revenge? "Chives," he
called into his sender, "come get us!"
Sparks showered off Vymezal's plate. He slipped aside in midair, more
fast and nimble than it seemed he could be in armor. His energy weapon,
nearly as heavy as the assailants, flared back. Thunders followed
brilliances. Bitterness tinged air. A mobile blast cannon reeled in
midflight, spun downward, crashed in a street, exploded. Fragments
ravaged a fragile facade.
"Shield the captain," Vymezal boomed.
Flandry's men ringed him in. Shots tore at them. The noise stamped in
his skull, the stray heat whipped over his skin. Held to his protection,
the marines could not dodge about. The guns converged.
A shadow fell, a lean hull blocked off the sun. Flames reaped. Echoes
toned at last to silence around smoking ruin down below. Vymezal shouted
triumph. He waved his warriors aside, that Flandry might lead them
through the open lock, into the Hooligan.
Wounded, dwindled, victorious, the Dennitzan fleet took orbits around
Chereion. Within the command bridge, Bodin Miyatovich and his chieftains
stood for a long while gazing into the viewscreens. The planet before
them glowed among the stars, softly, secretly, like a sign of peace. But
it was the pictures they had seen earlier, the tale they had heard,
which made those hard men waver.
Miyatovich even asked through his flagship's rustling stillness: "Must
we bombard?"
"Yes," Flandry said. "I hate the idea too."
Qow of Novi Aferoch stirred. Lately taken off his crippled light
cruiser, he was less informed than the rest. "Can't sappers do what's
needful?" he protested.
"I wish they could," Flandry sighed. "We haven't time. I don't know how
many millennia of history we're looking down on. How can we read them
before the Merseian navy arrives?"
"Are you sure, then, the gain to us can justify a deed which someday
will make lovers of beauty, seekers of knowledge, curse our names?" the
zmay demanded. "Can this really be the center of the opposition's
Intelligence?"
"I never claimed that," Flandry said. "In fact, obviously not. But it
must be important as hell itself. We here can give them no worse setback
than striking it from their grasp."
"Your chain of logic seems thin."
"Of course it is! Were mortals ever certain? But listen again, Qow.
"When the Merseians discovered Chereion, they were already
conquest-hungry. Aycharaych, among the ghosts those magnificent
computers had been raising for him--computers and programs we today
couldn't possibly invent--he saw they'd see what warlike purposes might
be furthered by such an instrumentality. They'd bend it wholly to their
ends, bring their engineers in by the horde, ransack, peer, gut, build
over, leave nothing unwrecked except a few museum scraps. He couldn't
bear the thought of that.
"He stopped them by conjuring up phantoms. He made them think a few
million of his race were still alive, able to give the Roidhunate
unique field agent--if they were otherwise left alone. We may never know
how he impressed and tricked those tough-minded fighter lords; he did,
that's all. They believe they have a worldful of enormous intellects for
allies, whom they'd better treat with respect. He draws on a micro part
of the computers, data banks, stored knowledge beyond our imagining, to
generate advice for them ... excellent advice, but they don't suspect
how much more they might be able to get, or by what means.
"Maybe he's had some wish to influence them, as if they learned from
Chereion. Or maybe he's simply been biding his time till they too erode
from his planet."
Flandry was quiet for a few heartbeats before he finished: "Need we care
which, when real people are in danger?"
The Gospodar straightened, walked to an intercom, spoke his orders.
There followed a span while ships chose targets. He and Flandry moved
aside, to stand before a screen showing stars that lay beyond every
known empire. "I own to a desire for vengeance," he confessed. "My
judgment might have been different otherwise."
Flandry nodded. "Me too. That's how we are. If only--No, never mind."
"Do you think we can demolish everything?"
"I don't know. I'm assuming the things we want to kill are under the
cities--some of the cities--and plenty of megatonnage will if nothing
else crumble their caverns around them." Flandry smote a fist hurtfully
against a bulkhead. "I told Qow, we don't ever have more to go on than
guesswork!"
"Still, the best guess is, we'll smash enough of the system--whether or
not we reach Aycharaych himself--"
"For his sake, let's hope we do."
"Are you that forgiving, Dominic? Well, regardless, Intelligence is the
balance wheel of military operations. Merseian Intelligence should be
... not broken, but badly knocked askew ... Will Emperor Hans feel
grateful?"
"Yes, I expect he'll defend us to the limit against the nobles who'll
want our scalps." Flandry wolf-grinned. "In fact, he should welc
ome such
an issue. The quarrel can force influential appeasers out of his regime.
"And ... he's bound to agree you've proved your case for keeping your
own armed forces."
"So Dennitza stays in the Empire--" Miyatovich laid a hand on his
companion's shoulder. "Between us, my friend, I dare hope myself that
what I care about will still be there when the Empire is gone. However,
rest of yours?"
"Carry on as before," Flandry said.
"Go back to Terra?" The eyes which were like Kossara's searched him. "In
God's name, why?"
Flandry made no response. Shortly sirens whooped and voices crackled.
The bombardment was beginning.
A missile sprang from a ship. Among the stars it flew arrow slim; but
when it pierced air, hurricane furies trailed its mass. That drum-roar
rolled from horizon to horizon beneath the moon, shook apart wind-carven
crags, sent landslides grumbling to the bottoms of canyons. When it
caught the first high dawnlight, the missile turned into a silver comet.
Minutes later it spied the towers and treasures it was to destroy, and
plunged. It had weapons ready against ground defenses; but only the
spires reached gleaming for heaven.
The fireball outshone whole suns. It bloomed so tall and wide that the
top of the atmosphere, too thin to carry it further, became a roof;
therefore it sat for minutes on the curve of the planet, ablaze, before
it faded. Dust then made a thick and deadly night above a crater full of
molten stone. Wrath tolled around the world.
And more strikes came, and more.
Flandry watched. When the hour was ended, he answered Miyatovich: "I
have my own people."
In glory did Gospodar Bodin ride home.
Maidens danced to crown him with flowers. The songs of their joy rang
from the headwaters of the Lyubisha to the waves of the Black Ocean, up
the highest mountains and down the fairest glens; and all the bells of
Zorkagrad pealed until Lake Stoyan gave back their music.
Springtime came, never more sweet, and blossoms well-nigh buried the
tomb which Gospodar Bodin had raised for St. Kossara. There did he often
pray, in after years of his lordship over us; and while he lived, no
foeman troubled the peace she brought us through his valor. Sing, poets,
of his fame and honor! Long may God give us folk like these!
And may they hearten each one of us. For in this is our hope.
Amen