The Ring of Ritornel Page 2

  “I’ve called the Group. They’re sending two flights—one to come into the quake zone. The other will stand outside. After the quake, the second flight will come in, also.”

  “I see. You don’t think either flight can do anything?”

  “Not really, sire. We’re still very close to epicenter. If we get out, we won’t need either flight. If we don’t get out, the first flight will get hit the same as us. In that case, the second flight will come in afterward for what is left of us.” The young officer knew he was not saying it properly, but he rushed on. “And now, sire, if I might make a suggestion, we want to get you inside this special emergency suit, with foam sealant.”

  “I suppose so. Pass the word, suits for all hands.” Oberon sighed. “A frustrating day.” He reached into the blue folds of his tunic and drew out his necklace with its pendant, the golden dodecahedral die of Alea. Each face bore a number, from one to twelve, and each number was a sign from Alea. He unfastened it and held it in his palm a moment.

  “Perhaps Alea will say how it shall be with us.”

  Huntyr’s face was ashen. “It is sacrilege to call idly on the goddess!”

  “Whether I call idly is entirely up to Alea,” said Oberon calmly. He let the die float away and took the foam suit from the lieutenant. “When the quake comes, Xerol will be her die cup.”

  “It’s Xerol, all right,” said the rescue commodore softly. Not being given to superfluities, he added only mentally, or what’s left of her.

  The search beam from the patrol launch stroked the stricken ship from steam to stern. There was no movement.

  The commodore barked into the communicator. “Lock on, midship, by that break in the plates. I want four men with torches to slice out a hole big enough for a stretcher party. On the double. They’ll save time if they work next to the crack in the hull. When you get inside, spread out. I’m coming in with you, and I’ll start with the pilot room. Call me there if you find anything.”

  He was not surprised at what he found inside Xerol. The portable searchlights showed havoc everywhere. The quake must have continued for some time after it had broken the spine of the ship and let in the awesome cold of space. Men had been quick-frozen and their bodies cracked like whips. As he worked his way up to the pilot room an occasional arm or leg floated past him, and his stomach began to writhe.

  The door was jammed, and they had to burn it off its hinges. Inside, he saw Captain Andrek, not even suited, and slumped queerly on the wall. The whole thing was incomprehensible. The captain was a splendid officer, with an impeccable record. It had been his duty to protect the Magister, but he obviously had failed in his duty. Perhaps the captain was lucky. Had he lived, he would face a summary court-martial and certain death.

  Just then he got an urgent call on the communicator. “Commodore! Calling from sick bay!”

  He didn’t get it at first. “Sick bay?”

  “Xerol sick bay, sir. Looks like we’ve found the Magister. His chest is crushed, but he may be alive. And another chap, a big fellow, with his head banged up. Sealant still oozing out of their suits, no pulse, but body temperatures within permissible limits.”

  “Stretcher them out of there. I’ll alert our own sick bay to get ready. Anybody else?”

  “No, sir. Everybody else was killed. We’ll need a fair-sized burial detail.”

  “No time for that, Sergeant. We’ll send a tug out later for Xerol. You get the Magister on board within three minutes or you will never see Goris-Kard again.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The commodore met them on the catwalk. It was indeed the Magister. The other one, the big man, he did not recognize. And the Magister’s chest, as reported, was indeed crushed. Jagged red pieces of rib bone had punctured the suit. Foam had evidently covered some of the protruding pieces and had then broken away. The commodore’s stomach was bothering him again. As the sergeant hurried past, he held out his hand and gave the commodore something. “What is this, Sergeant?”

  “An Alean die, sir. It’s gold. Must belong to the Magister.”

  “What number was showing?”

  “Number one, sir.”

  The commodore, a practicing Alean, felt his flesh crawl. One, the sign of the false god Ritornel, and disaster at the Node. It had to be. “Carry on, Sergeant,” he growled.

  2. JIMMIE AND OMERE

  For a long time the vibrations and the flashing lights seemed only a part of Jimmie’s dream. In the dream, he was at the Node, the crossroads of the universe, and the gods were dicing for his life. At each roll of the die, a great space quake would crash through his body, and in his head the lights would go on and off.

  Jimmy finally woke up, and when he did, he was awake all over. He didn’t have to stretch and cough and groan the way Omere did. He turned off the alarm button on his night table. The bed ceased its rhythmic insistent shaking, and the ceiling lights stopped flashing and came on full. Jimmie didn’t even have to look at the clock face. He knew that it was four in the morning, and that Omere wasn’t home. Because if Omere were in bed, Jimmie’s alarm would automatically have been deactivated. Therefore Omere wasn’t home.

  Jimmie found his robe and slippers and hurried into the phone room. He sat down in front of the multiceptor, fished the little black book out of the top drawer, and began dialing the long series of numbers that would connect his inquiry tapes simultaneously with nearly two hundred restaurants, bars, and sundry strange places strewn all over the night side of Goris-Kard.

  He found the right place within minutes. The Winged Kentaur, an odd place, a bar with reading and music rooms, haunted by bearded, thin-faced men and the strangely-dressed articulate women they brought with them. Painters, writers, singers, poets, scientists, priests. Omere was often there. Jimmie thanked the receptionist, turned off the ceptor, then ran back to his room to get dressed. He checked his money. It was important to have the right change for the capsules. Nobody liked exchanging big bills this time of night—or morning—and sometimes they’d look you over, making sure you were just a ten-year-old kid all alone, and then they’d try to steal it from you. But he had to take some money. He calculated. He’d need, say, five gamma for the regular doorman, ten for that mean-looking substitute. He counted out fifteen and put it in his top jacket pocket.

  He boarded the feeder tube in the corridor outside the apartment, punched the computer coordinates inside the capsule, put the coins in the slots, and waited. The feeling of motion pressed at his stomach, then went away, and then there were turns, right, left, up, down. It was impossible to keep a sense of direction. And then it was over. The capsule rolled out to an exit tube, and he was on the brightly lighted street. It was in the theater district, and the drama houses seemed to alternate with all-night bars.

  The Winged Kentaur was just ahead. In the luminous tri-di sign over the doorway, he could see the kentaur’s wings moving in slow majestic arcs. Omere had once tried to explain how the proprietor had selected the strange symbol. It was all mixed up in ancient fables that had come down from their Terrovian ancestors, centuries ago, and Jimmie doubted that he understood it all. The winged horse was the symbol of music, poetry, and the creative arts; and the kentaur was the symbol of the sciences, so a winged kentaur was the symbol of the best in the arts and sciences—the final step in the evolutionary process. But of course no such creature had ever really existed.

  The doorman smiled wryly at him and took his money with a nod. “Second room back.” Jimmie thanked him, braced himself, and walked in.

  Inside it was a strange blurry mixture of sound, smells, smoke, and laughter.

  A little group, mostly women, was watching the visi-screen. Even without the narrator’s explanation, Jimmie knew instantly what it was. Terror burning. It was all being broadcast from Terror’s single moon, complete with sound. You could hear the low eerie moaning of the flames, and the hiss of steam rising in hideous clouds from the boiling seas. All life was of course long vanished. The narrator was talking
: “The mills of justice grind slowly, but they grind exceeding fine. And what will be the fate of this terrible world? When the fires die down sufficiently, the great shaft will be drilled to the iron core, the explosives placed, and Terror will be towed far inward to the Node, there be blown to bits—an eternal lesson to tyranny…”

  Jimmie walked over. Sure enough, there was Omere, right in the middle. Jimmie frowned. Sometimes it was hard to get Omere away from women. Jimmie didn’t like the women. He had a very vague recollection of his mother, who had died when he was very small, but he was certain she had nothing in common with these creatures.

  And now one of them happened to spot him. She tapped Omere on the shoulder and called out harshly. “Hey, it’s the kid! Join the party, kid!”

  His brother turned on his swivel stool and looked full at him.

  “Hello, Jim-boy.” The secret grin, known but to Jimmie, was spreading across the youthful face. Whenever Omere did that, the boy’s heart pounded. It didn’t matter that the face was prematurely lined and furrowed and glowed ghoulishly under the dim blue ceiling radiants. It was the handsomest face in the world.

  But now to business. Jimmie said flatly: “You have dress rehearsals for the coronation recitals this afternoon at the Great House.”

  Omere sighed. “Another night slain by the icy edge of innocence. Yes; the coronation.” He took a sip from his glass, then put it down clumsily on the “chord,” where it nearly overturned. “Logic. When all else fails, he retreats into logic. Logic makes no sense. If you keep this up, dear little brother, we’ll turn you over to the advocates. Rehearsals? Why should I worry about rehearsals? While I’m here, working my fingers to the bone, where is the distinguished subject of my new epic? I’ll tell you. Oberon is on a hunting trip, having the time of his life. Is he worried about rehearsals?”

  Jimmie bored in closer and took Omere by the sleeve. “What’s that got to do with you? Oberon is the Magister. He can do anything he likes.” His voice was becoming anxious. “But you have got to get some rest before rehearsal.”

  Omere appeared to consider the matter briefly. He began to chant.

  “If you make me go to bed,

  I’ll put a bullet in my head.

  Maybe two, if you are rough.

  Three should surely be enough.”

  Jimmie grinned. This meant his brother would come peacefully.

  He was about to help Omere down from the bar chair when someone spoke just behind him.

  “Who is your young friend, Mr. Andrek?”

  Jimmie turned and looked up curiously at the speaker. The man—if he could be called that—was clearly not a native of Goris-Kard. Jimmie had never seen anyone like him before in his life. He wore the pale blue robes of the Great House, and on each lapel were the eight-armed spiderlike insignia that indicated his profession. He was a physician. On each hand was a white glove. His head and neck were draped in a blue hood. Jimmie thought for a moment that the hood covered even his eyes, until the eyes blinked. Then he noticed that there were actually two holes in the hood for the eyes. And such eyes! They seemed to flicker with a strange blue radiation, as though lighted from within the skull. Jimmie shivered.

  But Omere just laughed. “Doc,” he said, “this is my brother James.”

  The doctor’s gloved hands grasped each other to form a circle, in the manner of the Ritornellians, and he bowed gravely. “We are one in Ritornel,” he murmured.

  “With Ritornel we return,” replied Jimmie politely.

  All this seemed to amuse Omere greatly. “You have to be careful with Doc. He really believes in Ritornel. You’d think he invented the whole thing.”

  The blue lights in the doctor’s eyes seemed to vibrate. “It’s the duty of every man to formulate his own gods,” he said somberly. “And then, while he lives, to follow through to the end. Only then can he accept the gray robes of the pilgrim, for the last journey, for his reward and his release. Only then can he accept death.”

  “Don’t be alarmed, Jim-boy,” said Omere, with faint malice. “The good doctor isn’t quite ready to die. He’s waiting for the Sign.”

  “‘Sign?’” said Jimmie, puzzled.

  “The Laureate cloaks the truth with humor,” said the doctor. “Yet, by my beard, it is the truth. I await the Sign. The Twelve Galaxies will be brought to an end by the Omega of Ritornel. Yet, Ritornel decrees that the end is but the beginning of a new life. For that new life, a pair must be saved—male and female—the cream of creation. And a planet must be saved for them, to be their home, for them and their descendants. These things shall come to pass when we see the Sign.”

  “And what is the Sign?” asked Jimmie curiously.

  “A woman,” said the doctor. “It is written. A virgin, born from a man. A motherless child.” The pale blue lights seemed to burn into Jimmie’s head. Jimmie felt the hair on the nape of his neck stand up. He didn’t like this. And certainly he didn’t understand it. He took a step backward.

  Omere came to the rescue. He yawned elaborately and arose unsteadily. “So much for Ritornel. Let’s get out of this den of religion before we run into an Alean.”

  Jimmie stepped over to help him, but the doctor was already there.

  “Allow me.”

  Jimmie hesitated, but he was helpless. Together they helped Omere down from the chair, and then the three of them bumped their way through crowded rooms and out into the street.

  Here, Omere had a bad coughing fit. Jimmie cleaned up the sputum from his brother’s blouse. It was blood-flecked. The doctor stood by silently. Omere seemed to read his thoughts. “Let’s get home, Jim-boy. It’s not really bad.” The doctor helped Jimmie get Omere down to the tube entrance. It took both of them to put him inside the capsule and seated upright. Jimmie closed the door and, just before the capsule dropped into the subterranean entrails of the city, he stole a last covert look at the blue-robed figure behind them. All he could see in the semidarkness were two points of blue light. They seemed to be studying him intently. He turned back quickly.

  Back in the apartment, Jimmie put his groaning brother to bed. One sandal had somehow got lost; he removed the other, loosened the belt, and pulled the coverlet up gently.

  Omere spoke out sleepily in the semidarkness. “Don’t go just yet. Sit on the bed.”

  Jimmie sat down. “You should get to sleep.”

  “I know. Dress rehearsal. What’ll I wear?”

  “Your clothes are all laid out. Your new black synthetics, back hose, ivory lace collar and cuffs.”

  Omere was silent a moment. Finally he said: “The commodore left you in my care, Jim-boy, and now you’ve got it all mixed up. One of these days he’ll come blasting in from outer space, and we’ll both be court-martialed.” He turned over and coughed hollowly into his pillow. “I haven’t done a very good job on you, have I?”

  “Don’t talk like that,” said Jimmie uneasily.

  But Omere continued in somber vein. “If anything should happen to me before Dad gets home, you are to go to the dons in the prep school at the Academy of Justice. The papers are in my desk. The papers will tell you whom to see … everything. There’s plenty of money.”

  Jimmie was shaken. “Is your cough worse? I’ll call the doctor right away.”

  “No, no, don’t do that. Doctors don’t know anything. He’d try to get me to cancel the rehearsal. He might even try to cut me out of the coronation. Imagine, the Laureate not reciting his epic at a coronation! And what a coronation … the pomp and pageantry, music, priests chanting. Both temples, Ritornel and Alea, will be saying all kinds of words over Oberon.”

  “Which temple do we believe in?”

  “We burn incense in both temples,” said Omere blandly. “We believe in everything. It takes twice as much faith, but it’s safer. We stand still with Ritornel, while randomly advancing with Alea.”

  Jimmie knew his brother was teasing him. They hadn’t been inside a temple since he was seven. “You’re”—he sought for a word
—“cynical.”

  Omere laughed silently. “Such a big word from such a little boy. Yes, the dons will get you. Words are their business, their weapons in fighting the quarrels of other men.”

  They had been over this before. “I think I’d like to be a don,” said Jimmie. “James, Don Andrek. How does that sound? Maybe I could even be a don in the Great House. Maybe I could serve Oberon himself.”

  Omere frowned. “Stay away from him. There are strange stories. Some say he’d just as soon look at you as shoot you.”

  “You mean, ‘shoot you as look at you.’”

  “No, I don’t. And that’s the point.”

  “Oh.” Jimmie didn’t understand. But perhaps it was just as well. “We have to stop, and you have to go to sleep. I’ll be at school when it’s time for you to wake up, but the alarm is set.”

  “Thanks, Jim-boy. Good night.” Omere closed his eyes.

  The first flush of dawn was beginning to filter through the balcony windows; it cast an eerie radiance on Omere’s face. Jimmie started to pull the drapes, then stopped. He studied his brother’s face for a long moment, in wonder and admiration. Ordinarily, he thought of Omere as handsome. The word that now occurred to him was “beautiful.” His mother must have looked like this. Omere, he thought simply, I love you.

  With an effort, he broke loose from the enchantment, drew the drapes silently, and tiptoed from the room.

  He never saw that face again.

  In the eighteen years that followed, when he rummaged through his collection of mental images of Omere, this final scene, with the enhaloed face, was always first to take form.

  3. SHALL OBERON DIE?

  The Regent, Oberon’s uncle, was so old that he seemed ageless. He had seen it all, not once, but many times. Life to him was like Oberon’s boyhood carousel: wait a bit, and the whole thing comes around again. There were indeed Ritornellian aspects in his theo-philosophy, and in fact in decades previous he had carried the golden ring on the red cushion in the solemn annual processions. And yet, just as he was not an Alean, either in the letter or by spirit, neither did he adhere to Ritornel. Indeed, his religion was totally dynastic, and dealt with transcendental and celestial matters only to the extent that they promised an immediate benefit to the Delfieri line. And since the death of his younger brother, the anointed ruler, in the last days of the Terrovian War, he had emerged from retirement to hold the government together until Oberon became of age.