Reave the Just and Other Tales (44 page)

But she knew that if she let herself think that way she would go mad. Gritting her teeth, she focused her attention—and her thrusters—toward the enemy.

Now everything depended on whether the alien knew there were people alive aboard
Aster’s Hope.
Whether the alien had been able to analyze or deduce all the implications of the c-vector shield. And whether Temple could get away.

The size of the other vessel made the distance appear less than it was, but after a while she was close enough to see a port opening in the side of the ship.

Then—so suddenly that she flinched and broke into a sweat—a voice came over her suit radio.

“You will enter the dock open before you. It is heavily shielded and invulnerable to explosion. You will remain in the dock with your device. If this is an attempt at treachery, you will be destroyed by your own weapon.

“If you are goodlife, you will be spared. You will remain with your device while you dismantle it for inspection. When its principles are understood, you will be permitted to answer other questions.”

“Thanks a whole bunch,” she muttered in response. But she didn’t let herself slow down or shy away. Instead, she went toward the open port until the dock yawned directly in front of her.

Then she put the repro Gracias had done on the comp to the test.

What she had to do was so risky, so unreasonably dangerous, that she did it almost without thinking about it, as if she’d been doing things like that all her life.

Aiming her thrusters right against the side of the black box, she fired them so that the box was kicked hard and fast into the mouth of the dock and her own momentum in that direction was stopped. There she waited until she saw the force field which shielded the dock drag the box to a stop, grip it motionless. Then she shouted into her radio as if the comp were deaf,
“Gracias!”

On that code,
Aster’s Hope
put out a tractor beam and snatched her away from the alien.

It was a small industrial tractor beam, the kind used first in the construction of
Aster’s Hope,
then in the loading of cargo. It was far too small and finely focused to have any function as a weapon. But it was perfect for moving an object the size of Temple in her suit across the distance between the two ships quickly.

Timing was critical, but she made that decision also almost without thinking about it. As the beam rushed her toward
Aster’s Hope,
she shouted into the radio,
“Aster!”

And on that code, her ship simultaneously raised its c-vector shields and triggered the black box. She was inside the shield for the last brief instants while the alien was still able to fire at her.

_______

Later, she and Gracias saw that the end of their attacker had been singularly unspectacular. Still somewhat groggy from his imposed nap, he met her in the locker room to help her take off her suit; but when she demanded urgently, “What happened? Did it work?” he couldn’t answer because he hadn’t checked: he’d come straight to the locker from his capsule when the comp had awakened him. So they ran together to the nearest auxcompcom to find out if they were safe.

They were. The alien ship was nowhere within scanner range. And wherever it had gone, it left no trace or trail.

So he replayed the visual and scanner records, and they saw what happened to a vessel when a c-vector field was projected onto it.

It simply winked out of existence.

After that, she felt like celebrating. In fact, there was a particular kind of celebration she had in mind—and neither of them was wearing any clothes. But when she let him know what she was thinking, he pushed her gently away. “In a few minutes,” he said. “Got work to do.”

“What work?” she protested. “We just saved the world—and they don’t even know it. We deserve a vacation for the rest of the trip.”

He nodded, but didn’t move away from the comp console.

“What work?” she repeated.

“Course change,” he said. He looked like he was trying not to grin. “Going back to Aster.”

“What?” He surprised her so much that she shouted at him without meaning to. “You’re aborting the mission? Just like that? What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

For a moment, he did his best to scowl thunderously. Then the grin took over. “Now we know faster-than-light is possible,” he said. “Just need more research. So why spend a thousand years sleeping across the galaxy? Why not go home, do the research—start again when we can do what that ship did?”

He looked at her. “Make sense?”

She was grinning herself. “Makes sense.”

When he was done with the comp, he got even with her for spilling ice cream on him.

I
had wealth—an enviable villa graced by servants and soothing grounds, courtesans both imaginative and compliant, and a thriving merchantry, coupled with social standing just below that of the Thal himself. I had friends, well placed and gracious, who might have come to my aid—if they could have done so without inconvenience. I had a substantial, if somewhat overfed, cohort of guards sworn to my service and, presumably, to my protection.

But necromancy and the fatal arts were Sher Abener’s province, and at last I fled from them.

The nature of his quarrel with me was at once mystically arcane and stupidly practical. The caravans of my merchantry extended their travels to Sher Abener’s distant homeland, from whence his occult passions and powers derived. In hushed whispers, it was often said that there men trafficked openly with the dead, while here such practices are only feared and shunned.

On the day when Sher Abener’s enmity toward me was set in motion, he approached me, asking that I command my caravans to obtain various necrotic objects and potencies for him from his homeland. Naturally, I acquiesced. I had never sought conflict with any man. Indeed, during the years since my kind and indulgent father had succumbed to the plague, and I had inherited his villa, his riches, and his merchantry, I had studiously avoided contention of any kind. I saw no purpose in it. I desired no alarms and apprehensions to trouble my satisfied life. The manly skills appropriate to my station—primarily the saber and lance, supported by some few techniques of unarmed combat, and a smattering of theurgy—I had learned without interest as a youth, and forgotten as swiftly as I could. My business dealings were marked more by pleasure and comradeship than by profit. My sport with my courtesans and friends accommodated no discomfort. No doubt Sher Abener had come to me because he could be certain of my acquiescence.

Unfortunately, the man whose duty it was to carry out my assent refused. He was Tep Longeur, the overseer of my merchantry—the man who both commanded and represented the drovers and carters and ware-hawks of my caravans. Two days after Sher Abener’s request, he approached me with his unwelcome reply.

“Sher Urmeny,” he informed me stiffly, “it won’t be done. We won’t do it.”

“My good man, why ever not?” I responded in protest. Truth to tell, I had at that moment no notion what he meant. My transaction with Sher Abener—ominous though it was—had already vanished from my mind.

“The men won’t do it,” Tep Longeur explained. “And I won’t force them. I wouldn’t do it myself in their place. That trek is already dangerous enough. These things—” The neat scrim of his beard lifted in disgust. His eyes flashed a careless anger past the sun-belabored leather of his cheeks. “They’re evil, Sher Urmeny.”

“‘Things,’ Tep Longeur?” I made no attempt to conceal my bewilderment. He had served my family longer than I had been alive, and knew me too well to be misled by feigned certainty. “‘Evil’? Have you dismissed your senses?”

“No, I haven’t, Sher.” My overseer brandished before me a parchment marked by Sher Abener’s crabbed hand. A thrust of his finger indicated one illegible item. “This is a mechanism used to suck the blood from a man while he still lives. And
this
”—Tep Longeur pointed again—“keeps a man’s member rigid after death, so he can still be used for fornication. For those,” he sneered bitterly, “who enjoy that sort of amusement.”

I found that I needed to seat myself. I had been cognizant of Sher Abener’s reputation, certainly. And a moment’s thought might have informed me that the objects and potencies he desired were of unpleasant application. Yet I had not considered that I might become an unwitting participant in some dire rite.

“But I have accepted Sher Abener’s request,” I informed Tep Longeur. “It must be carried out. That is the nature of merchantries. The alternatives”—I could hardly suppress a shudder—“are disagreeable.”

Indeed, my overseer himself had always insisted that a merchant must stand by his word.

Now, however, he jutted his jaw stubbornly. “The men won’t do it,” he repeated. “They’ll leave your service first.” Then he added, “I’ll leave it myself. We’re decent folk, all of us. We’ll have nothing to do with necromancy.”

Had I been of a less dignified temperament, I would have groaned aloud. Here was a choice for which I had no taste thrust upon me. The prospect of informing Sher Abener that I must decline his requirements appeared unpleasant in the extreme. At the same time, I had no answer for the threat of Tep Longeur’s defection. I was entirely dependent on him. I could no more have filled his place myself than survived a contest of necromancy. If he abandoned me, I would be forced to rebuild my entire merchantry. And that burdensome task might prove impossible. If men who had grown fat in my service refused my commands, others would likely do the same.

Wracked by concerns I did not enjoy, I concluded eventually that my need for Tep Longeur’s forthright service outweighed other considerations. Sher Abener must take his requirements elsewhere. He was a reasonable man, was he not? Doubtless he would be vexed by my decision—but he would accept it. And I could offer him a number of valuable compensations. I alone controlled the price of my goods, regardless of their cost of procurement, or their exotic origins. Surely he would not disdain to profit at my expense?

This decision contented me in the privacy and comfort of my villa. Unfortunately, I began to doubt it when I ventured forth to announce it to Sher Abener in person. His reputation for darkness, like the memory of his bitter visage, contrasted uncomfortably with the gracious avenues along which I strolled in the direction of his walled manor. Benedic, the seat and chief municipality of our Thal’s demesne, was a sun-drenched and soothing town. Locust trees overarched the avenues, shaping the sun’s kindness with an artist’s hand. Whitewashed villas nearly as attractive as my own gleamed among their grounds and gardens on each side. Ladies and courtesans displayed their gowns and charms in open phaetons drawn by the fine steeds which were the source of the Thal’s personal wealth. Prosperous laborers tended the walks and intersections, the gates and carriageways. And above my head a flawless sky held Benedic like the setting for a rare and grace-bedizened gem. I conceived that I had been born for the enjoyment of such days in such a place, and images of Sher Abener’s dour countenance disturbed my satisfaction.

His manor was of grim granite, undressed, naked of plaster, and high-walled to foil any unwelcome attention. As it stood, it formed a blot on one of Benedic’s most harmonious vistas, and I wondered as I approached why the Thal had permitted it to be built as it was. The light of the sun shunned it, and the locusts leaned askance. Its stone spoke of secrets and practices dangerously protected. Indeed, it appeared strangely ominous, as though it threatened the whole of the town. Nearing it, I became concerned that its owner and architect might not prove as reasonable as I desired.

I had with me no more retinue than one servant and a guard. Considering the nature of my errand, I had no wish for ostentation. Yet I found now that I would have preferred a greater company around me. I would have liked Sher Abener to know that I was not a man to be threatened or harmed, despite my compliant nature.

But these were fancies, I assured myself, suggested by the hard stone and unfamiliar style of the manor. Thoughts of threat and harm had no place in such sunlight, under such a sky. Benedic was not a municipality in which a man of my wealth, charm, and pleasantness need fear the ill will of his fellows. Surely the Thal would not have granted Sher Abener leave to dwell among us if his arts or his intentions were as dread as his abode.

Assuming a good face, I sent my servant to announce me at the manor’s portal.

The gates opened before us, though I saw no servants drag them aside. A dreary voice instructed us to proceed to the doors of the manor itself, but I saw no speaker. And when we gained the doors, we found them wide, despite the fact that they had been unmistakably shut, and we had not seen them move.

“Sher,” my guard murmured to me, “this is an unwholesome place.” A pallor had come over his plump features. Sweat stood on his brow. “Do not enter.”

I wished to scoff at his apprehensions, but I found that my own assurance had sunk too low. Turning to bid my servant advance ahead of me, I saw only the miscreant’s back and heels as he fled between the portal gates at a run.

“Sher—” my guard quavered piteously.

Devoutly, I desired the man to display more fortitude. He had accepted good coin in my service for years, and had been asked little or nothing in return. I felt entitled to his courage. At the same time, however, I considered it unseemly for a man of my stature to appear more timorous than his underlings. Cursing the honorable intentions which had brought me to this discomfort, I took pity on him and ordered his return to my villa.

Perhaps he would spread the tale of my courage, beneficence, and forbearance, and Benedic’s esteem for me would be enhanced by this otherwise distressing adventure.

Escorted by that cold comfort, I entered Sher Abener’s disconcerting abode alone.

As outside, so within—my host appeared to have no servants or retainers, and need none. The manor doors admitted me to a vestibule as remarkable for its emptiness of occupants as for its dreariness of design. To one side a vast stair rose toward regions too ill lit to betray the use their master made of them. They appeared so clenched with gloom, however, that my fancy unwillingly supplied hosts of fiends pouring from them to assail me. Yet the prospect opposite the stair was hardly more pleasing. There beyond a heavy archway one featureless chamber succeeded another into the obscurity, each apparently more vacant and unadorned than the one before it. Sher Abener had scant use for windows—or the light of day. His rooms gathered darkness as a well does water.

Again an unseen speaker addressed me. “This is the present dwelling of Sher Abener in exile. His friends may enter freely. Others may not. Reveal your name and purpose.”

The dour tones appeared to issue from the walls themselves—an utterance of the very stones. Once more I wondered why our Thal had permitted such an edifice to be constructed. It shed a chill into the marrow of my bones.

Striving to portray an assurance I lacked entirely, I replied, “I am Sher Urmeny. I wish to speak to Sher Abener concerning his recent trans-actions with my merchantry.”

“Very well,” assented the walls, or some other unnatural agency. “You may approach Sher Abener as he breaks his fast.”

No one appeared to guide me—and I did not relish the notion of simply blundering about the manor until I chanced upon my host. After a moment or two, however, a lamp in the chamber beyond the immediate archway appeared to take light of its own accord. Finding the darkness dispelled to that extent, I ventured beyond the vestibule toward the source of illumination.

The room in which I found myself was indeed featureless—naked of adornment and windows, or of any lamps save the one now blazing necromantically before me. Yet as I neared it, another lamp took flame in the next chamber. And when I approached that light yet another announced itself ahead of me. Clearly, this unnatural display was intended to lead me to Sher Abener.

I obeyed. But I disliked progressing in that fashion. I disliked it extremely. Its impersonality and power diminished me. And what was worse, it heightened my sense of alarm. I found now that I distrusted my host. A man who treated his neighbors and associates thus violated the social ease and graciousness which characterized Benedic, and upon which I depended for much of my pleasure in life. Our Thal had erred grievously when he had granted Sher Abener a place among us. Virtuously, I resolved to tell the Thal this in person at my earliest convenience.

Such intentions steadied me somewhat, but they could not quell my growing apprehension. As I advanced through the manor, I became quite certain that its master was not a man who would respond reasonably to disappointment.

I reached him after I had crossed some eight or ten chambers which varied only in their size and in the height of their ceilings. By then I was positively relieved to discover him engaged in an activity as ordinary as breaking his fast. Truth to tell, I was even relieved by the sight of the plain trestle table at which he dined, the stool on which he sat, the blunt plate and mug which held his food and drink. During my trek, my fancies had conjured the image of a man who feasted on the dead and drank from the veins of sheep. At another time, I might have said that his rejection of physical comfort and service was both absurd and ostentatious, but in my relief I was simply glad to discern that his meal was not monstrous.

“Sher Urmeny.” He inclined his head to me without rising. “It is not your custom to visit your friends in order to discuss a merchant’s trans-actions. I fear you have come with bad tidings. What is amiss?”

Without realizing that I had stopped and fallen silent, I stared at him as though we had never met before. He was Sher Abener and no other—not a man who might be mistaken for someone else—and yet he appeared to have altered himself in some fashion. The urbane citizen of Benedic who had brought his requirements to my merchantry was gone. A stranger had assumed his face and name.

I had not noticed in our previous dealings that his voice was abrasive, as rough to the ear as new rope to the touch. Not had I observed that the sleek beard lying tightly along his cheeks and jaw appeared to have been oiled with blood and clotted in place. A look in his eyes which I had earlier taken for pleasantry now seemed feral and avid, eager to demonstrate its strength.

A moment passed before I understood that I had not answered him. I had lost my voice. Indeed, I could hardly swallow. On the instant, I determined to assure him that all his needs would be met. If this displeased Tep Longeur and my caravaneers, I would replace them as best I could. The utter ruin of my merchantry and fortunes appeared less fearsome than Sher Abener’s displeasure.

Yet my resolve failed as quickly as it formed. It was impossible. Without Tep Longeur—without his honest service, and the support of men who believed as he believed—I was helpless to satisfy Sher Abener. Then I would be forced to deliver the same tidings I now bore. And the necromancer’s ire would not be made less by delay.