MacRoscope (51 page)

What of the Lion second-strike capability the Chief had so carefully mentioned? Schön smiled again. The solution to that inhibitor was obvious. The Rams had underestimated the perspicacity of the stranger, thinking to set him up as a duped emissary. They had staged a mock meeting and made a mock decision, while the war preparations moved ahead full-scale. There had never been a true capitulation, and probably not even a genuine ultimatum. This thrust had been decades in the making.

Lion ships still cruised in the vicinity of the supposed emergence, though the bulk of that fleet was already heading toward him. They had thought that his moon was merely another unit in the invasion — as indeed it was. But it had not stayed long enough to allow their planet-busters to score, and now was in an unscheduled location. Doubly unscheduled: naturally the Ram schedule differed from that set up for the truce mission, and his own schedule differed from Ram’s.

He adjusted the macroscope to focus within his own moon and took a look on sweep. Sure enough, the buried warships were already coming to life, their crews having emerged from mass gasification. He had at least done them the favor of saving them from the planet-busters; Lion intelligence
was
better than Ram’s. Not that it made any difference to him.

Strange that they had trusted him with the spacefold mechanism. Perhaps they had feared that he would recognize a dummy-panel — a correct assumption — and had felt that the lock sufficed against incidental mischief. If they really thought he was an important Lion spy, verisimilitude required that he be allowed to observe the setting for himself.

There were hundreds of simpler and surer ways of doing it, naturally. But the military mind had never been noted for its subtlety or efficiency, fortunately. Fortunately? It would not
be
the military mind if it were clever. Most likely, the Ram strategists had simply underestimated him by a factor of two or three.

In due course his Ram escort would get around to dispatching him as superfluous. His ship was unarmed — theoretically in accordance with the negotiations setup — and lacked working fluid for any extended trip. They were sure they had him penned safely; their immediate concern was the approaching fleet of Lion.

He refocused the scope on the farther reaches of the system. Sure enough: the third expedition had appeared. No moonlet, this; Ram had transported its entire home-world! That was their answer to Lion’s second-strike capability, as he had suspected. Removal of the target from the target-system.

A third time he smiled. Such naïveté!

For now the Lion home-planet was gone, leaving only the massed offensive arm to attack the Ram planet before its inhabitants could be reconstituted. Two could play at this game of treachery and system-jumping!

Oh, the fragments would be small, very small, when the first accredited empire came collecting!

Now it was time to make contact with Lion, on the way to larger things. In three hours the jumpspace mechanism would initiate its fourth and final cycle, with disastrous consequences for any unprepared troops in the vicinity. Those outside the field of compression would be smashed by the moon’s collapse and displacement; those still within it would be preserved — but not in animate state. Only the resilient gas-form could sustain that terrible implosion alive.

Schön paused before the chamber entrance. Exactly how grateful, he wondered, would the opposing monarch — the Pride of Lion — be for a complete undamaged military moon, together with a number of serviceable warships?

Not grateful enough, he decided. Lion would attempt to string him along as had Ram, exercising the eternal governmental prerogative of amorality and fallibility. Meanwhile the internecine struggle would continue, each home-world in orbit about its neighbor’s sun, its native life suffering from the unfamiliar radiation.

No, the real rewards for the entrepreneur would not occur until an empire made its move.

Perhaps such a move could be hastened by a little judicious manipulation…

Still smiling, Schön stepped into the chamber. “Alexander, where are you?” he murmured as the warner sounded.

“
A velvet flute-note fell down pleasantly upon the bosom of that harmony…
” And Ivo was that flute, or of it, and the chambers he descended into were liquid. First he encountered the scorpion resting on the beach, not a horror, huge as it was, but rather with an aspect of creativity and fairness. Then he passed the crab, who watched patiently from under the surface, housed beneath a shell. At last he stopped at the tank wherein the fishes were swimming, like twin animate feet wading under the wave. Upon the one was written SYMPATHY, and upon the other HEART.

“From the warm concave of the fluted note Somewhat, half song, half odor, forth did float, As if a rose might somehow be a throat…” Ivo said to Pisces in the prescribed mode.

And the first fish replied: “Yea, Nature, singing sweet and lone Breathes through life’s strident polyphone…”

And the second fish continued: “Yea, all fair forms, and sounds and lights, And warmths, and mysteries, and mights, Of Nature’s utmost depths and heights…”

And the first: “So Nature calls through all her system wide,
Give me thy love, O man, so long denied…
”

And the second: “Trade! is thy heart all dead, all dead? And hast thou nothing but a head? I’m all for heart,” the flute-voice said.

And on the bottom of the tank was written in sand and shell:

Physical contact between the stellar cultures of the galaxy in fact meant chaos. All species had needs and ambitions, and few were ethical in galactic sense when subject to meaningful temptation. Prejudices submerged during the long purely-intellectual contact reappeared now with renewed force. It developed that certain warm, liquid-blooded species had an inherent aversion to certain cold mucous-surfaced species, however equivalent their intellects, and many other combinations were similarly incompatible. Certain species turned pirate, preying on others and taking wealth, slaves and food without fair recompense; others inaugurated programs of colonization that led rapidly to friction. Not all encounters were violent; some were mutually beneficial. But the old, stable order had been completely overturned, and power shifted radically from the intellectual to the biological and physical. Highly civilized cultures were overrun and annihilated by barbarians.

A new order arose, dominated by the most ruthless and cunning species. Greed and distrust acted to split and weaken the empires of these new leaders, forcing further change and breakup, in an ever more dissolute spiral. In the course of half a million years, galactic civilization as an entity disappeared entirely, submerged in the tide of violence; no macroscopic broadcasting stations remained except the extragalactic Traveler. Isolated by their own released savagery, all species declined. It was the Siege of Darkness.

Approximately one million years after its inauguration the Traveler beam terminated. The siege was over — but the progress of galactic civilization had been set back immeasurably. As time passed, macroscopic stations began again to broadcast, and a new network was established
—
but the scars of the Siege were long in healing. Love, once denied, recovered slowly.

“You are better now,” the voice said hopefully.

Beatryx opened her eyes, that were still stinging from the salt, and squinted into the warm sunlight. She was wearing a black bathing suit somewhat more scant than seemed appropriate. “Oh, yes!” she agreed, a little dizzy from her recent immersion. It had seemed she was drowning…

The young man’s face seemed to shine. “Lida! Persis! Durwin! A paean, for she who was lost is healed!”

Three handsome young persons bounded across the sand. “Joy!” the leader cried, a muscular giant, sleek with the water dripping from his torso.

In moments they stood before her: two bronzed young men, two lovely girls, each radiating vitality. All had lustrous black hair and classically sculptured features.

The first man spoke again, more formally: “This is Persis, girl of peace.” The girl performed a motion suggestive of a curtsy, smiling. Her teeth were bright and even. “This is Lida, beloved of us all.” The second girl genuflected, smiling as politely as the first. “And my dear friend Durwin.” The second man raised his hand in a formal wave rather like a salute, hoisting an eyebrow merrily.

“And I,” the speaker said diffidently, “am Hume — lover of my home.” His smile was the most winning of all.

Beatryx tried to speak, but Hume squatted to touch her lips lightly with his slender finger. “Do not name yourself. Surely we know you already. Have you not brought joy to us?”

“She who brings joy!” Durwin exclaimed. “Her name would be—”

“Beatrice!” the two girls cried.

“No,” Hume said solemnly. “That would be common joy, and hers is uncommon.”

Durwin studied her. “You are right. Look at her hair! She is as a diamond amidst quartz. Yet joy must be her designation. Not Beatrice, nor Beatrix—”

“But Beatryx!” Hume finished.

“We shall call her Tryx,” the girl Persis said;

Beatryx listened to all of this with tolerance. “You knew my name already,” she said.

“We knew what it had to be,” Hume said, and offered no further explanation.

“Where is this?” She looked at the white sand and he strings of seaweed and the green-white surf.

“Where,” Hume inquired gently, “would you like it to be?”

“Why, I don’t really know. I suppose it doesn’t matter. It must be like Ivo’s dream, when he went to Tyre — only it seems so real!”

“Come,” Durwin said. “Evening is hard upon us, and the village is not in sight.”

“Yes,” Lida agreed. “We must show you to our companions.”

Then Beatryx was walking down the long beach, seeing the light of the setting sun refracted off the rolling water in splays of colored light. The men paced her on either side and the girls skipped next to them. Inland the palmlike vegetation rose, casting long and waving shadows in the distance. The air was warm and moist, rich with the briny odors of the sea. Underfoot — all feet were bare, including hers, she suddenly realized — the sand was hot but not uncomfortable, spiced with multihued pebbles and occasional conchlike shells. The word “murex” came to her, but she could not place either the source or the meaning; certainly she had never seen shells quite like these before.

Half a mile down the curving shoreline rested the village, a cluster of conical tents on the beach. In the center she saw a bonfire, great fat sparks leaping into the darkening sky, occasional fluffy wood-ashes drifting in the air current coming in across the water. She could smell the burning cellulose, together with hot stones and charred seaweed, and the hungry aroma of roasting fish.

Hume took her by the arm and guided her into the crowd. “This is Tryx,” he proclaimed. “Come from the water, and great joy to us that she is sound and well.”

“Another rescued!” someone cried. They gathered about, dark-haired, slender, glowing with health and friendliness. There were about thirty in all, as comely a group as she had ever seen. “See how fair she is!” a girl exclaimed.

Beatryx laughed, embarrassed. “I am not fair! I’m almost forty!” With that she wondered where Harold was. It was strange to be anywhere without him, and not entirely comfortable, though these were certainly nice people. Harold and Ivo and Afra — were they still back in the floating chamber, watching her as the three had watched Ivo before? But she had no Schön-personality to direct the trip… it was all so complicated.

The others smiled. “We must build a house for you,” one said, and immediately there was a flurry of action. One of the tents was evidently a storehouse; from it the men and women, working in cheerful concert, brought poles and rolls of clothlike material and lengths of cord. Some quickly planted the poles deep in the sand and bound them together at the top, while others wrapped the cloth around the outside of the resultant structure. Beatryx noticed that there were snap fastenings at the edges, so that the material could be easily joined to itself and to the uprights.

And it was complete: a many-colored teepee residence for her to stay in while she was here. They stood back and looked at her expectantly.

“It’s very nice,” she said. “But—”

They waited, but she could not go on. It way very nice, and their society was very nice — but how could she inquire the purpose of it all? She had entered some kind of — diagram? — something with little balls falling and wheels spinning, and she had seen strange animals as though one of Harold’s charts had come to life, and finally she had fallen into a pond with talking fish — or had she
been
the fish, somehow? — and some kind of writing on the bottom. She understood vaguely that it all had to do with history and the reason she and Harold and Ivo and Afra had come to this place.
That
place. But now she was by herself, and there was no history and no explanation, and she did not know how to phrase her question.

If only Harold were here to take charge! He was so practical about such things.