The Ring of Ritornel Page 6

  “It’s the dust and debris, afterward,” said Huntyr. “It would be too dangerous to navigation to blow her here. At the Node, there’s no such problem.”

  Andrek nodded. “I can see that. But why the chemical explosives? Why not nuclear?”

  Huntyr smiled. “There can be no nuclear reaction at the Node, Don Andrek. Ships have to shift over to old-style chemical reaction motors when they enter the Node area. Even a biem won’t fire there.” He patted his left shoulder holster. “That’s why I also carry a slug-gun. It’s on account of the bugs.”

  “He means the ursecta,” explained Vang. “Strange little creatures that metabolize pure energy into protons.”

  “That would account for it,” agreed Andrek.

  “And so the demolition crew has a long way to go,” said Huntyr. “After the drilling starts, more than a thousand giant tugs will be required. They’ll lock onto the planet and start hauling her, moon and all, to the Node. It will indeed be a long drawn-out and very expensive process, requiring subsidies from all the galaxies. And two years from now, when they finally reach the Node, there’ll of course be a final hearing by the entire Court of Arbiters.”

  “A mere formality,” said Andrek. “Nothing can save Terror. It will be my job to ensure that.”

  “I understand our old friend, Dean Poroth, has been made the Chief Arbiter,” said Vang.

  “Yes. Certainly he’s highly qualified. And it seems likely that the next time I see him will be in support of a show-cause order for Terror’s destruction. And with no switch in the program.” It was all very curious. Terror’s final hearing had to come, and Andrek was looking forward to it with considerable pleasure, if only to see Poroth again.

  Vang broke the silence. There was a strange chill edge on his voice. “You never found any trace of your brother Omere?”

  And now Andrek had an impression … a sudden insight … that this was why Vang had invited him to their table. Something, for great good, or for great evil, was in the making. He said slowly: “Nothing more than you could hear on the general tapes. He participated in the coronation. And then he vanished. None of the detective agencies that I have hired could find any real evidence that he left the Great House after the coronation.”

  Vang’s eyes glittered. “Huntyr was in the personal service of his excellency, the Magister, before Oberon reached his majority. The Huntyr agency might have unique access to—certain information…”

  Andrek looked at Huntyr speculatively. It was almost too good to believe. Perhaps here at last was the contact he had been seeking—someone who had known the youthful Oberon. The only thing wrong with the idea was its source: Vang. He knew now that he was moving into grave danger. And he couldn’t care less. He asked the big man: “Can you take the case?”

  “It is possible. Andrek … haven’t I heard that name before?”

  Vang’s eyes caught Huntyr’s single one. “Everyone has heard of Omere Andrek, the Laureate. We can confer on this later.”

  “I’ll take the case,” said Huntyr.

  “Good,” said Vang. “And as we part, I’d like to propose a toast to the early reunion of the Andreks.” He poured a round of liqueurs. Into his own glass he dropped a tiny white pellet, then raised the liquid to his lips. “Reunion,” he repeated.

  “I’ll drink to that,” said Andrek. “At least to reunion with Omere. My father is dead.”

  But Vang seemed not to hear.

  Huntyr smiled grimly at Andrek as they put down their glasses. “The Aleans are not content to be the galaxy’s foremost poisoners; they assume that everyone is attempting to poison them. Hence the general antidote after every meal. Oh, don’t worry. We’re perfectly safe.”

  When Andrek returned to his room, he noted that Terror’s sun had set over the crater rim, and that the planet herself was now faintly visible. The great stricken globe hung just over the horizon, its dark side unrelieved by even a hairline of a crescent. But there was no need for reflected sun light to illuminate this thing-beyond-horror. On its right limb, the western edge of one great continent burned crimson beneath clouds twenty kilometers deep, visible as a luminous haze, and generated by the action of seas on flaming shores. To the west was the darkness of Terror’s great central ocean, which spanned nearly a hemisphere. It would be some hours yet before the revolving planet would present the continents beyond that immense water.

  He stripped, climbed into his sleeping robe, and then into the little bunk.

  Andrek awoke from a fitful sleep. A red glare was flickering on the ceiling overhead, and at first he thought the place was on fire. But then he remembered. Terror was turning on its axis to reveal its land side, incandescent with nuclear fires. The portholes in the moon-globe, overlain with red filters against the torrents of ultraviolet light, provided the crimson display within the room.

  He found his slippers quietly and glided over to the little window. And there he watched in fascination as the leading eastern edge of Terror’s largest continent moved majestically forward, and in the southern hemisphere the great island continent came slowly into view. It was just, that Terror should stand thus and be purified before her final terrible punishment to come. Thirty billion souls had died here in the climax of the Horror. It had been an act of terrible vengeance by the League led by Goris-Kard, in whose planets more than twice that number had died over the years of the revolt.

  “It is but just,” he muttered defensively. And then he thought, why must I reassure myself? Just, or not just, it was done, and now it is all history.

  But it was not that simple. When, not so many years ago, he had lost his ill-fated “save-Terror” petition at Poroth’s practice court, he had delved thoroughly into Terror’s history. There were two sides to Terror. The planet was not totally bad. She had, in fact, contributed much to the civilization of the Home Galaxy. But none of this mattered anymore. It had not saved her people, and now none of them were left to prevent her own certain destruction.

  Finally, he drew the blinds and returned to bed.

  As he lay there, on the edge of sleep, his thoughts returned to Vang’s odd motion with his fists, at the moment their eyes had met across the dinner table.

  And now, at last, he had it. Vang’s cord of Alea that had held his robes loosely about his waist. The thin, black cord, tightly woven in a strange plait design, with a brass buckler over the rip knot at the side. There were no loops on the robe to hold it. It could be disengaged for use instantly. And for what use he knew by rumor. The Aleans with security training had a use for it. It was a strangling cord. And the act of strangling was done by that strange gesture with the hands. Probably Vang had not even been consciously aware of it. (Which made it worse!) Andrek put uneasy fingers to his throat, and thought back to the day at school when he first had the weird foreknowledge that Vang had resolved to kill him.

  It had been from this trip that he had returned to the Great House and noticed the strange young woman, standing just outside the music room, with her hand on Kedrys’ golden mane, and watching Andrek covertly from the corner of her eye as he walked past her toward the wing of the Foreign Office.

  “There’s Kedrys,” was his first thought, as he passed them, nodding politely, “but where’s Amatar?”

  Only when he reached the end of the corridor and looked back (by then they were gone) did he realize that the woman was Amatar. In a space of weeks something had changed her from a child into a lovely young woman. He knew, in an academic way, that girls did this. Even so, it was incomprehensible, and he shook his head in wonder.

  6. SURGEON AND PILGRIM

  In the music room a lone gray-robed figure spoke quietly into the console receptors. “I have come to bid you farewell. My work on Goris-Kard is nearly done. I leave you now, but Amatar will care for you. The prophesy is at work, and the days of its completion draw near.”

  “You are mad, Surgeon,” muttered the console. “By the mad gods of Ritornel and Alea, you are mad. You are beyond hating. Yet I
crawl and beg and have no pride: Turn the knob. Cut the blood flow. Release me!”

  “Rimor,” said the gray figure, “when you sing of Terror tonight, sing of a planet cleansed by fire, rinsed in the Deep, and finally, peopled by gods, returned to rule the universe.”

  “On one small condition, Surgeon. You will take the next ship to the Node and jump into the first quake that comes along.”

  “Agreed,” said the robed one.

  Andrek looked at the credit refund on the desk in front of him, and then at the man who had placed it there, and a chill began to crawl slowly up his spine.

  James Andrek was at this time in his twenty-eighth year. His face was still a strange mixture of innocence and haunted inquiry, and it showed more clearly than ever the impact of his enduring, armed truce with destiny, whereby he gauged every incident, and evaluated every point in time, only with respect to their contribution to the core of his existence, which was the unceasing search for his brother.

  The investigator hired two years ago to find Omere had just now terminated the assignment. Something was wrong; strangely, terribly wrong.

  The one-eyed man behind the desk watched Andrek’s reaction with a fleeting smile, which Andrek noted with further unease. He was thankful that the smile was brief: combined with the glinting eye patch and twisted cheek scar, it seemed more like a snarl.

  Huntyr spoke quietly. “Let me dispose of a subsidiary matter, first. You have the final report of this agency on the death of Captain Andrek, your father. We have been able to add very little to what you already knew. We have confirmed the presence of his ship, Xerol, at the Node during the quake of eighteen years ago. He was killed, of course. His body was eventually recovered, and he was buried in space. Copies of the official Naval Bureau notices are in our report. We believe this closes the investigation with regard to your father.”

  Andrek waited.

  After studying his client a moment, Huntyr continued. “Don Andrek, the investigation of your brother’s disappearance is quite another matter. We now find that we erred in accepting the assignment. We should have realized this in the beginning. Our charges to you arising out of our search for your brother over the past several years have totaled seven thousand gamma. We now refund this.”

  Andrek watched the two burly assistants carefully from the corner of his eye. One, whom he recognized as Hasard, was leafing idly through a filing cabinet. The other was replacing tapes in a storage case. Andrek knew he was not likely to be hurt for the next few minutes. He got control of his voice. “The credit is for ten thousand.”

  Huntyr transfixed the advocate with a glinting pupil ill-concealed within a half-closed eyelid. “Compensation for our negligence in wasting your time.”

  The game can be played, thought Andrek, at least for a little while. If Huntyr wants to be a reluctant witness, then I’ll be the cross-examining don. Almost as though we were in court. But with a crucial difference. In court, the witness would not be permitted to kill me if I ask the wrong questions.

  He picked up the credit with a well-simulated gesture of disappointment. “The compensation is little enough, especially when I myself showed you the old news-tapes proving my brother was last seen entering the Great House, right here on Goris-Kard.”

  “That was eighteen years ago. After so much time, the evidence often becomes very hazy. Witnesses die, disappear.” He studied Andrek with apparent languor. “You do not think the compensation enough?”

  Andrek toyed with the credit, and tried to sound convincing. “It is not very much, after raising my hopes so high. When I got your message this afternoon, I was certain you had definite news. How could my brother be swallowed up without a trace? Omere Andrek was the Laureate when he disappeared. He had given recitals on every major planet of the Home Galaxy. His face was known to billions.”

  Huntyr’s one eye narrowed still further. “We deeply regret your disappointment, Don Andrek. Under the circumstances, we will double the compensation.”

  The man at the tape case became suddenly motionless as Andrek put the credit into his jacket pocket, then relaxed as the advocate put both hands back on the desk.

  “That will not be necessary,” said Andrek. He now fully understood that some person—or persons—unknown to him had caused (not merely persuaded) the agency to discontinue the investigation, and that this new situation had just been conveyed to him, Andrek, for his full understanding; and further, that, if he persisted, he would be killed.

  He had to play for time. Huntyr certainly had secret information. It was time to let the investigator know that he, Andrek, realized he was being cheated. Except that he could not say so, not in so many words. Not yet. So he said nothing, but merely raised his eyebrows and stared quizzically at the investigator.

  As Andrek’s mute insinuation sank in, Huntyr’s scar began to glow a dull pink. “This is a reputable agency,” he clipped. “We have been in business for eighteen years. We have branch offices on every major planet of the Home Galaxy. We serve a distinguished clientele. Even the Great House retains us. For your information, young man, I was once in the personal service of Oberon of the Delfieri. And I might add that the Magister still calls on me for assistance in matters of great trust. So, if you are not satisfied with our findings, you are free to go elsewhere.”

  “You speak of the Great House,” said Andrek quietly. “Let me remind you, Huntyr, that I am attached to the legal staff of the Great House.”

  The office was suddenly deathly still. Huntyr was barely breathing. The two assistants were again instantly motionless.

  So, thought Andrek, your new client outranks me. You must be protected very nobly indeed. The question that I have not yet asked, you have very nearly answered. For you, Huntyr, know the fate of my brother, and whether he is dead or alive. Your agency has probably uncovered three answers from the person or persons unknown, responsible for my brother’s disappearance, and they have bought you off. They must be rich. And powerful: they know of my connection with the Great House, and apparently it does not trouble them. And who are they? There are three general possibilities: the Great House; the Temple of Alea; the Temple of Ritornel.

  Andrek thought in legal terms. Query, may Huntyr now be tricked into naming one of these three?

  He had to consider a number of things very quickly. He had never before been involved in physical danger. Yet he planned to take a risk in the next few seconds that would call on him for more poise and courage than he had so far expended in his entire lifetime. He had sought his brother too long not to seize the opportunity for one more answer.

  “I am expected straightway at the Great House,” he said. The evenness of his voice both astonished and pleased him. “When I get there, I shall let it slip to certain of my more talkative friends that you know my brother’s whereabouts and have agreed to tell me everything for fifty thousand gamma.”

  Huntyr’s single eye glittered. He took a long noisy breath. “No one will believe that, Don Andrek.”

  “Believe?” asked Andrek with quiet scorn. “They know you will betray—for enough money.”

  Huntyr sighed and moved slightly forward.

  There was a faint click behind Andrek, and he realized that the door was locked.

  “James, Don Andrek,” rasped Huntyr, “you are a very clever man. You make people tell you things they shouldn’t. Yet, in some ways, you are not clever at all. You are alone—without family. Your parents are dead. Your brother… If you should disappear, who would take the trouble to look into it? People disappear on Goris-Kard every day. A few lines in the morning news reports, and that’s the end of it. They become police statistics. I hope you understand that there’s nothing personal in what is going to happen to you now.”

  As soon as any one of them reaches for a biem, thought Andrek, I’m going to overturn the desk on Huntyr. If that works, maybe they’ll shoot each other in the crossfire.

  But the next motion was not a grab for a biem. Rather it was the mouth of th
e investigator—opening wide in amazement.

  For the door behind Andrek clicked again and—opened. Andrek whirled to assess this new variable.

  It was a Ritornellian friar—in the coarse gray robes of a pilgrim. Leaving the door open behind him, he clasped his gloved hands together within his long rasping sleeves and bowed with faint smiles to each of the four men. He spoke in a husky, apologetic whisper, addressing himself apparently to no one in particular. “I’m sorry about the door. Since it was locked, it was necessary to open it. But it is not damaged.”

  Andrek forgot his fear momentarily as his startled eyes swept rapidly over the newcomer. For one fleeting moment he thought he recognized him. But as he studied the intruder, the feeling of pseudo-recognition faded, and he quickly became convinced that his first impression must have been only wishful thinking. The large bearded face of the newcomer had a distinctly alien cast. A rare type of hominid? wondered Andrek. The beard was gray, yet strangely thick, like an animal pelt, and it rose so high on the stranger’s face that even the cheekbones, if they existed, were concealed. The great head seemed to sit squarely on the shoulders, without benefit of intervening neck. Andrek had the impression that the intruder would have to swivel his entire torso to turn his head. And the eyes! They were overlarge, bulging, yet liquid, luminous, strangely attracting. As he stared into them, Andrek caught a sudden, staggering vision of vast space, of time without end … and death. Involuntarily, he blinked, and the vision vanished. But this was not all. Even in the full light of Huntyr’s office, the pilgrim’s entire face seemed to glow with a pale blue radiance. Andrek could not imagine what caused it; he had never heard of anything like it before. For that matter, he had never seen a pilgrim before, although he had heard of them. As he understood the custom, when a Ritornellian friar felt death drawing near, he would sometimes decide to put on the gray of the pilgrim, and take passage to the Node, there to die.