Star Bridge (15 page)

Crude wooden benches were arranged neatly on the rough floor. The rows faced toward the far end of the room. That end was bright. Blackly, massively silhouetted against the light was a symbol carved out of the living rock; it was a circle bisected by a thick line extending above and below it and ending in horizontal arms and feet.

Horn recognized it. It was the scientific symbol for entropy, and this was an Entropy Cult chapel. There were a few people scattered singly on the benches, their heads covered and bent in thought or weariness. Their clothing was ragged. Horn sank gratefully onto a bench and bent his head into his arms.

He had run until he could run no more; this was the end. He had run from the naked desert of Earth deep into the rocky heart of Eron; he could run no farther. But what could a quarry do except run?

Eron wanted him, needed him as badly as it ever needed anything. It would never forget. It would never rest until he was in its hands, Horn the Assassin, smasher of images, threat to empire. There was no hope for him.

And he realized what he would have to do. Even the most timid animal will fight when it is cornered. While there is a chance for escape, it will run, but when it can run no farther, it will fight. And so Horn would fight. The only way to survive was to destroy Eron. Horn clenched his jaw: he would destroy Eron.

Only long afterwards did the decision seem funny: one man declaring war against man's greatest empire. At that moment Horn only knew that it was logical and just. Eron could be destroyed; he would destroy it.

It went no farther than that. In his weariness, he didn't think of odds or means or plans. There was only the decision, implacable, unshakeable, and—

His arms were seized, twisted behind him while he came up off the bench. Helplessly, Horn braced his shoulders against the pain.

 

THE HISTORY

Atoms and men.…

They are moved by certain general forces in accordance with certain general laws, and their movements can be predicted in certain broad generalizations.

Physical forces, historical forces—if a man knew the laws of one as well as he knew the laws of the other, he could predict the reactions of a culture as accurately as the reactions of a rocket ship.

One historical force was obvious—Eron. It couldn't be overlooked. Its influence was universal.

Challenge and response. That was a force. Eron challenged; man responded with the Tube. Out of the Tube sprang the Empire.

But now the greatest challenge was the Empire itself; it shaped its own responses. By its own grim pressures, it created the forces that threatened it. It created its enemies and cut them down and found new enemies rising behind, beneath, within.

It created the Cluster and destroyed it, as it had destroyed other growing cultures and would go on, creating and destroying, until it grew too weak to respond with renewed vigor and was itself destroyed.

And there were other forces working, unseen, inexorable, sweeping before them men and worlds and empires.

What of a man? Is he at the mercy of these forces? Is he helpless to determine his own destiny?

The laws of classical physics are statistical; the unpredictable, individual atom enjoys free will.…

 

 

11

THE TURNING TIDE

Horn woke to darkness.

He woke with the dream still vivid, remembering the sensation of being tossed and driven in the fury of the flood that rammed irresistibly through the tube, remembering the choking, gasping helplessness and the long, wild tumbling into nothing. He remembered, too, the sudden surge of decision and energy with which he had caught a handhold in the tube, blocked it with his body, withstood the furious battering of the raging water, and slowly, surely, forced it back upon itself.…

Under Horn was rock, warm, worn smooth. The air was dusty and stale, but it was breathable. Horn sat up, recalling the narrow dimensions of the cell, and felt rested, restored, and alert. He sat in the darkness, hugging his knees to his chest, and remembered how he had been brought to this place.

On either side of him, there in the Entropy Cult chapel, had been a dark-cloaked man, his face shadowed and anonymous under a hood. Horn's arms had been twisted up tightly behind him; the hands holding him had been strong and sure, and he could get no leverage. They had moved him easily, silently, across the rough floor. None of the bent people on the benches had even looked up.

As they went through a break in the rock wall into a dark corridor, Horn glanced back over his shoulder. Uniformed guards poured into the room through an entrance near the carved entropy symbol, like a gray wave. Horn and his escort moved quietly through a maze of black tunnels before they stopped.

They tied his hands behind his back, took his gun away, and fitted two nooses around his neck. One cord led to the man in front who led the way; the other trailed to the hooded figure behind. If he tried to escape, he would be strangled.

Horn trotted anxiously between them, trying to keep the cords slack. It was a nerve-wracking, exhausting effort that kept him at a constant half-run with no time for thought of anything except the tightening cords around his neck. They seemed to walk forever, through eternally branching, eternally dark corridors cut out of the rock. Horn started to stumble; it threatened to leave the silent figures with a corpse to carry.

Before Horn collapsed, they entered a room partially lighted by a hand torch blazing up from a metal bracket fastened to the wall. The ceiling was dark, bare rock not far overhead, but the light didn't reach the other walls of the room. From the echoes, Horn formed the impression that it was deep and wide.

Someone had been waiting for them. It was a man, shorter than his guards but dressed like them in a concealing, hooded robe. His face was hidden in shadows. On the breast of the robe was embroidered the bisected entropy circle.

Horn stood between them, struggling to stand straight. One of his captors spoke. It was the first sound Horn had heard him make.

“He fits the description. Found in chapel fifty-three.”

The voice sounded hollow. It bounced back and forth between the rock walls. Horn looked straight ahead, his face immobile.

“Pull back his cap.” The voice was firm and decisive.

As the cap was pulled back from his face, Horn caught a glimpse of the face under the hood. The light slanted across it as the man studied him. It was a hard, dedicated face. Horn had never seen it before. The voice, the face, both strange; Horn wondered why his intuition was making such an issue of it.

“It's the man.”

They put him in the cell, cut his hands free, and gave him food and water. The food was coarse, but it was filling. Horn needed it after the bulkless nourishment of the food pellets. The barred, metal door had slammed behind them. It had been a solid, final sound.

Alone in the darkness and the complete silence, Horn had eaten and then investigated the cell. It was completely bare but clean. There was no exit except through the door, which admitted what air came into the room. Horn fingered the lock. It was newer than the door and escape-proof. Its small square of minute holes needed the insertion of tiny, magnetized filaments.

Before he had time to worry about it, he had fallen asleep.

Now, awake, he wondered what had awakened him. He heard again the odd, clinking sound that seemed loud in the total silence.

“Hurry!” someone whispered.

Horn felt his skin creep. He tensed his muscles. A final clinking sound and the door creaked. Before Horn could spring, a light was in his eyes. He blinked blindly.

“Ah, boy, boy,” someone breathed softly. The light went out. “I've been a long, weary time finding you.”

“Wu!” Horn said incredulously.

“The old man himself.” Something metallic clanked against the stone floor of the cell.

Something rustled. “And Lil. Don't forget poor Lil.”

Horn moved quickly to the door. It was shut, locked tightly. He whirled in the darkness, his back pressed to the bars. “Why did you lock it again? We've got to get out.”

“Easy, my boy. We got in. We can get out as quickly. But first we must talk.”

“Talk then. How did you get here? The last time I saw you, the lancers were leading you away from the Victory Monument.”

“So they did. It is another mystery for Duchane's Index. Cells aren't made for Lil and me; locks cannot keep us in or out. The jail hasn't yet been built that will hold us.”

“Not even Vantee?”

“Prison Terminal?” Wu said softly. “Perhaps. Vantee perhaps. But they would have to take us there, and how would they hold us on the way?”

There was no answer except a scurrying and rustling near the floor. In the brief flare of Wu's light, Horn saw that the old Chinese was dressed as he had been before. His battered metal suitcase was beside his feet. And on the floor was a glowing-eyed cat with matted fur and a scarred face. It trotted toward them triumphantly, a limp rat dangling from its mouth.

“What of you?” Wu asked. “I know, of course, that you were bold enough and foolish enough to carry out the assassination of Garth Kohlnar.”

Briefly Horn described what had happened to him since Wu and Lil had leaped over the ruined wall. After Horn finished, Wu was silent for a few minutes.

“I could help you escape from here,” Wu said finally, “but where would you go? Where in Eron is there a hiding place for the assassin of the General Manager?”

“There isn't any,” Horn said quietly. “Eron must be destroyed before I'll be safe.”

“Then you've given up?”

“That isn't what I said.”

“Oh.” Wu chuckled. “One man against Eron. A delightfully daring thought—but hopeless. Empires fall when they are ready and not before.”

“When a tree is rotten,” Lil interjected suddenly, “the lightest breeze will topple it.”

“You, too?” Wu sighed. He was thoughtful. “Undaunted youth,” he said. “I would like to feel those emotions again, those convictions that there are no mountains unscalable, no seas unswimmable, no odds too great. How do you plan to start?”

“I don't know,” Horn said slowly. “Maybe with the man who hired me to kill Kohlnar.”

“Who was that?”

Horn shrugged and then realized the gesture was meaningless in the darkness. “It was in a room as dark as this.”

“You would recognize his voice?”

“I don't know.”

“Then how do you expect to find him?”

“By something you said once. When we were in the tunnel. I was hired in the Cluster, you see, right after the surrender of Quarnon Four. You said nobody knew about the Dedication then.”

“That's right,” Wu agreed.

“Somebody knew about it. Kohlnar must have known. Whom did he confide in? Who did he trust? Who betrayed him?”

“I see,” Wu said softly. “That eliminates his enemies, in the Cluster and elsewhere, and leaves his friends. His close friends. To which of them did he tell his dreams?”

“Exactly,” Horn said. “It seems to me that it would be one of the Directors. Which one stood to gain most from Kohlnar's sudden death?”

“The hunter,” Lil said hollowly, “the bloody, bloody hunter.”

“Duchane?” Wu said. “Perhaps. He or one of the others might hope to retrieve from chaos what he couldn't get by an orderly transfer of authority. So far Duchane has seemed to gain the most. He has moved swiftly and surely; at the moment he is the most powerful man alive. His position is pretty; it would be even prettier if he had caught the assassin. Or if the lower levels were not on the edge of rebellion. He could have counted on the first; perhaps he could not have expected the second. Duchane. Or perhaps one of the others.”

Horn heard light metallic sounds. He identified it with the opening of Wu's suitcase. A bar of something was pressed into his hand. He heard a gurgling sound bringing the pungent odor of synthetic alcohol. He bit into the bar gingerly. It was sweet and rich with oils. He ate it hungrily.

“Don't forget poor Lil!” the parrot said quickly.

The light clicked on briefly. Horn glimpsed a pouch in Wu's hand and the glitter of huge diamonds sliding from it.

“How did you find me?” Horn asked suddenly.

“Lil and I are used to finding hidden things,” Wu said. “We found the lovely Wendre's diamond tiara, eh, Lil?”

For answer there was only a muffled crunch and a sigh of satisfaction. “Lovely, lovely,” Lil said. Horn couldn't decide whether she was referring to Wendre, the tiara, or the diamond.

“It must have been through the Cult,” Horn said.

“You're a clever man,” Wu said softly. “Yes, the Cult owes me a favor or two, and I called on it to locate you.”

“It must be an interesting organization; even more efficient than Duchane's. That's surprising in a religious cult.”

“Isn't it,” Wu agreed. “And it is—efficient, I mean—in its way and at its level. It followed you for some time, sent out some red herrings to draw the pursuit away, and brought you here.”

“That was the guard who ran past the shop,” Horn exclaimed.

“No doubt,” Wu said.

“Why did you want to find me?” Horn asked.

“You have a right to be curious. And I have a right to refuse to satisfy it. You may credit it to your own charm or an old man's whim, if you like. You are interesting, you know. Hired killers always are. Not admirable, but interesting.”

“I've never asked for admiration,” Horn said mildly. “This isn't the epoch for admirable characters. They die young. My only interest is survival. But then I don't suppose anyone would apply the adjective to you, either.”

“True,” said the old voice in the darkness. “But our survival characteristics are slightly different. Yours are skill, strength, courage, and amorality. Mine are craft, weakness, cowardice, and immorality. I recognize the great social forces and work through them; my infirmities keep me alive.”