Rise of the Terran Empire Read online

  Adzel set Juanita down. "Come," he said, "let us go off in a corner and have a tea party." She paused to pet Chee. The Cynthian submitted, merely switching her tail.

  Yet it was impossible to pretend for long that no universe existed beyond the blue overhead. Soon the Muddlin' Through trio were relating their experiences. Van Rijn listened intently, interrupting less often than Coya with questions or exclamations.

  At the end: "This equipment you salvaged from the warship, did you learn anything about it on your way home?" he asked.

  "Very little." Falkayn rubbed the back of his neck. "And damned puzzling. Most of what we saw, as well as what we took away, is modeled on Technic designs, as you'd expect. But certain transistors—we can't figure out how they were manufactured in a hydrogen atmosphere. Hydrogen would poison the semiconductors."

  "Maybe they're produced off Babur, like on a satellite," Coya suggested.

  "Maybe," Falkayn said. "Though I can't see why. Alternative kinds of transistor exist which don't require going to that much trouble. Then there's a unit which we guess to be a containment field-strength regulator. It involves a rectifier operating at a high temperature. Okay. But this particular rectifier is cupric oxide. Hydrogen reduces that stuff when it's hot; you get copper and water. Oh, yes, the piece is inside an iron shell to protect it. But hydrogen leaks through iron. So what the Baburites have got is a part less reliable, more often in need of replacement, than necessary."

  "Bad engineering as a result of haste," Coya offered with a quirked smile. "Not the first time in history."

  "True," Falkayn said. "But—Look, the Baburites have had offplanet help. That much was admitted to us; and we identified an oxygen-breather colony on one of their moons, you recall; and there are those foreign mercenaries, also oxygen-breathing. Obviously they hired such outsiders to help them with research, development, and production of their military machine. Why didn't the outsiders do a better job?"

  Van Rijn stumped about, worrying his goatee and crunching bites off a Spanish onion. "More interesting is how the Baburites found those people, and how paid them as well as the other costs," he opined. "Babur is not a rich world nor very populous, proportional to its size, even allowing for industrial backwardness. Too much of it is desert, for lack of liquid ammonia. What has it to pay with?"

  "It did do some interstellar trade in the past," Falkayn reminded. "Possibly somebody made contact or—I don't know. You're right, it's tough to find an economic explanation for everything they've managed to accomplish."

  "Or any kind of explanation for their actions, by billy damn. I never sent you off expecting the kind of gumblesnatch you got into. No, I thought sure the Baburites would talk at you, probably not tell you much but anyhows talking. The sensible thing from their viewpoint should be, if they going to butt heads with the Commonwealth, they stay friends with the League, or at least not make it also an activated enemy. Nie?"

  "They seemed, from what microscopic contact we had with them, they seemed contemptuous of the League. They certainly know it's divided against itself."

  "How can they be so cock-a-doodle sure of that? Do we savvy the ins and outs of their politics? And why not try to take advantage of our divisions? For instance, they might get the Seven and the independents bidding competitive for business with them . . . if they treat the representatives halfway decent."

  "Could you simply have run into an overzealous official?" Coya wondered.

  Falkayn shook his head. "From what smidgen we know of the Baburites, hardly," he replied. "They don't appear to be organized that way. They don't have hierarchies of individuals holding positions. In their dominant culture, if not in all, it's a matter of whole Bands overlapping. So-and-so many single beings may each be responsible for a fraction of a job, and confer about it with their mates; a given being can be on several different teams."

  "That makes for fewer contradictions," Adzel added, "though likewise, I suspect, less imagination and a lower speed of reaction to developments."

  "Which suggests it was a policy agreed on beforehand, that any strangers who arrived would promptly be thrown in the freezer," Chee said. "Oh, we three have had plenty of time to speculate."

  "Have you speculated about companies of the Seven possibly maintaining quiet relationships with Babur?" Coya asked.

  "Yes." Falkayn shrugged. "If so, under present circumstances you wouldn't expect them to advertise the fact, would you? They could easily have been kept in the dark for decades about the intentions of the Imperial Band."

  "Are you positive, dear?"

  "Well, what can such a relationship actually have amounted to? Occasional visits by one or a few agents to a strictly limited region of a planet with more than twenty-two times Earth's area—a much bigger proportion of it dry land, at that."

  "Still," Chee murmured, "the section where significant action has been taking place isn't necessarily huge." A phone chimed. "Kai-yu! Of every tyranny you humans have ever saddled yourselves with, that thing has got to be the most insolent."

  "Nobody knows I am here but my top secretary," said van Rijn. His bare feet slap-slapped across the tatami to the instrument. When he pressed accept, it announced, "Edward Garver wishes to speak to you personally, sir. What shall I tell him?"

  "What I would like you to tell him is not anatomically possible," van Rijn grunted. "Put him on. Uh, the rest of you stand back from the scanner. No sense handing out free information."

  Square shoulders, bald head, and pugdog face sprang into simulacrum. "You're on Ronga, I believe, where your snoopship is," said the Commonwealth's Minister of Security without preamble.

  "You got told about her, ha?" van Rijn replied, quiet as the center of a hurricane.

  "I issued standing orders the day I learned she'd left." Garver hunched forward, as if to thrust himself past the vitryl. "You've been a special interest of mine for an almighty long while."

  Falkayn—still more, perhaps, Adzel, who had once been arrested after a certain incident—remembered. Since the years when he was chief law enforcement officer of the Lunar Federation, Garver had hated van Rijn. His terms in the Commonwealth Parliament had put a fresh edge on that. It was an oddly pure passion. Because of the particular encounters they chanced to have had, he saw the merchant as an archetype of everything he abominated about the Polesotechnic League.

  "I want to know where the crew have been, what they've done, and why," he said. "I'm calling personally so you'll know I mean this . . . personally."

  "Go ahead and want as much as you feel like." Van Rijn beamed. "Wallow in it. Scrub your tummy with it. Blow bubbles. Try different flavors." Behind his back, he crooked a finger. Falkayn in turn gestured to Chee and Adzel, who went quickly out. The younger man stayed by Coya. His partners could remove the log and Baburite apparatus—to which the health inspector had paid no particular attention prior to their descent—from Muddlin' Through before a search party arrived with a warrant.

  Another log would remain, which had been faked as a matter of routine. He'd better brief his wife and his grandfather-in-law fast.

  "—no more of your apishness," Garver was rasping. "I presume you know about the Baburite attack on our ships. It means war, I guarantee. Parliament will meet, by multiway phone, inside the next hour. And I know what the vote will be."

  I do too, Falkayn thought sadly, while silent tears started forth in Coya's eyes. Not that we should do nothing about the killing of our men. But this haste—? Well, the Home Companies see a vital interest in Mirkheim. Let the Commonwealth possess it, and that will be their foothold in space, against the Seven.

  "And the war will purify us," Garver said.

  It will give the government powers over free enterprise that it never had before. You can't consider the Home Companies free enterprises any longer. No, they're part of the power structure. He loathes us because we've never either joined or toadied to the coalition of cartels, politicians, and bureaucrats. To him, we represent Chaos.

  Gar
ver checked himself from orating. With iron joy, he went on: "Meanwhile, as of an hour back, the Premier has declared a state of emergency. Under it, my department takes authority over all spacecraft. We'll be commandeering, van Rijn; and no ship will move without our permission. I've called you like this in the faint hope that'll make you comprehend the gravity of the situation, and what'll happen to you if you don't cooperate."

  "How sweet of you to tell me," the merchant replied expressionlessly. "Was there more? Hokay, pippity-pip." He switched off.

  Turning to the rest, he said, "I would not give him the satisfaction." He jumped up and down. The floor thundered. He pummeled the air with his fists. "Schijt, pis, en bederf!" he bellowed. "God throw him in Satan's squatpot! His parents was brothers! May he wish to become decent! Make us a four-letter Angular-Saxon language just for him! Ga-a-a-ah—"

  Adzel, reentering the house, dropped his load to cover Juanita's ears. Chee scuttled past him, carrying the log reel, in search of a good hiding place for it. Coya and Falkayn caught at each other. A whine rose outside as two Central Police vehicles came over the horizon and turned downward for a landing.

  XII

  Was this truly Earth?

  Eric could sit still no longer. The program he watched was interesting—doubtless banal to a native, but exotic to him. However, he was too restless. He flung himself off the lounger, strode across his room, halted at a window.

  Evening was stealing across Rio de Janeiro Integrate. From his high perch his gaze swept over the flowing lines and rich tints of skyscrapers, bold silhouettes of Sugarloaf and Corcovado, bay agleam as if burnished, Niterói bridge an ethereal tracing. Cars torrented along streets and elevated roads below him, wove an intricate dance through the flight lanes above. He touched a button to open the window and filled his lungs with unconditioned moist heat. No traffic noises actually reached him, but he had a sense of them, the unheard throb of a monster machine, almost like the pulse of a spaceship. The sheer existence of such a megalopolis came near being frightening, now that he stood brow to brow with it.

  His right hand's grip on his left wrist tightened. I am not nobody, he defied the immensity. I led a score of warcraft here.

  The door chimed. He spun on his heel, heart irrationally jumping. "Come in," he said. The door swung itself wide.

  A man, small and dark as most Brazilians apparently were, stood there in a fanciful uniform, holding a package. "This came for you, sir," he announced in accented Anglic. The Hotel Santos-Dumont employed live servitors.

  "What?" Puzzled, Eric approached. "Who'd be sending me anything?"

  "I don't know, sir. It arrived by conveyor a few minutes ago. We knew you were still here and thought you might like to have it at once."

  "Well, uh, uh, thank you." Eric took the parcel. It was in plain packwrap and bore only his name and address. The man remained for a moment, then left. The door shut behind him. Damn! Eric thought. Should I have given him money? Haven't I read about that as a Terrestrial custom? His face heated.

  Well, though . . . He laid his present on a table and tugged the unsealer. Inside were a box and an envelope. The box held a freshly folded suit of clothes. The envelope held two sheets. On the first was written: "To his Excellency Eric Tamarin-Asmundsen, in appreciation of his gallant efforts, from a member of United Humanity."

  Who—Wait, it did get mentioned while I was with those politicians and officers yesterday. A mildly racist association, naturally jingoistic about Babur. With the publicity that our escape from Hermes seems to have gotten . . . Hm, a second message. WAIT A GOD-SMITTEN MINUTE!

  My son,

  Read this and destroy. Leave the other note lying about so it may satisfy the curiosity of those who have a watch on you.

  I am anxious to meet you, for your own sake but also for the sake of both our planets and perhaps many more. It must be done secretly, or it is useless. I will only say now that you and your men are in danger of being made pawns.

  If you possibly can, cancel any appointment you have, wear the enclosed outfit, and at 2000 hours—Earth-clock, not Hermetian—go to the parking roof. Take a taxi numbered 7383 and follow instructions. If you can't tonight, make it the same time tomorrow.

  "Long live freedom and damn the ideologies."

  Your father,

  [seismograph scrawl]

  N. van Rijn

  For a minute that stretched, Eric stood where he was. Old Nick himself, hammered through him. You hear stories about him throughout space as if he were already a myth. Of course I intended to look him up, but—

  His blood began to sing. After the grinding voyage, the wary reception, the strenuous drabness of two conferences with highly placed Earthlings, conferences that were more like interrogations, the interview before a telenews camera, and now this . . . Why not?

  He was invited to dinner at the Hermetian ambassador's home in Petrópolis. He might have been housed there, except for lack of guest facilities; the embassy had a very small budget, because hitherto it had had little to do. Hence the Commonwealth government was treating him to these quarters. Quite possibly they were bugged. Certainly he was separated from his crews, who had been sent to dwell in—what was the name?—Cape Verde Base?

  Yet why should he suspect the Commonwealth? He had everywhere met politeness, if not effusiveness.

  Could be I'll learn tonight. He phoned, pleading fatigue, and postponed his engagement a day. Room service brought him sandwiches and milk. (Earth's food and drink had subtly peculiar tastes.) Afterward he changed into the new garments. They were flamboyant: sheening blue velvyl tunic and culottes, white iridon stockings, scarlet shimmerlyn cloak. Even here, where colorful garb was the rule, he'd stand out. Shouldn't he be inconspicuous instead?

  Somehow he outlived the wait. Dusk fell. At the designated time he stepped from a gravshaft out onto the roof. The muggy atmosphere had not lost much heat; the city's horizon-wide shattered rainbow of lights seemed feverish. Several cabs stood in line. Opposite them, a man leaned against the parapet as if admiring the view. Is he a watcher? The sleek teardrop vehicles bore numbers on their sides. Eric's was in the middle of the row. How to take it without making obvious that that's the one I want? . . . Ah, yes, I know. I hope. He paced back and forth for a bit, cloak aswirl behind him, like a person not sure what to do; then, passing 7383, he feigned the impulse that made him lay a hand on its door.

  It opened. He got in. A shadowy shape crouched on the floor. "Quiet," muttered forth. Aloud, to the autopilot: "Palacete de Amor." The car took off vertically, entered the lane assigned it by the traffic monitoring system, and headed west.

  The man crawled up. "Now I can sit," he said in Anglic. "They're following us; but that far off, they can't see through our windows." He extended a hand. "I'm honored to meet you, sir. You may as well call me Tom."

  Eric accepted the clasp numbly. He was looking at himself.

  No, not quite. The clothes were identical, the body similar, the head less closely so though it should pass a cursory inspection.

  Tom grinned. "Partly I'm disguised, hair dye, maskflesh here and there, et cetera," he explained. "And a standout costume, which draws attention from me to itself. Gait's important too. Did you know that you Hermetians walk differently from any breed of Earthling? Looser jointed. I've spent the past day in crash-course training."

  "You . . . are a man of van Rijn's?" Eric asked. His mouth was somewhat dry.

  "Yes, sir. He keeps several like me on tap. Now please listen close. I'll get off at the Palacete while you hunch down the way I was doing. I'll give them a satisfying look at me, hesitating before I go in. Meanwhile you tell the car, 'To the yacht.' It isn't really a cab, it just looks like one. It'll take you to him. At 0600 tomorrow morning, it'll bring you back to me, I'll step in, we'll let you off at your hotel. As far as the Secret Service is concerned, you spent the night at the Palacete."

  "What, uh, what am I supposed to be doing there?"

  Tom blinked, then guffawed. "
Having a glorious time with assorted delicious wenches after your long journey. Don't worry, I'll leave behind me a goodly tale of your prowess. At times like this, I enjoy my work. Nobody will mention it to you; that's bad form on Earth. Just be prepared for a few smirks when you tell people you're tired because you slept poorly."

  Eric was spared the need to respond, since Tom said, "Get down" as a garishly lighted façade came in view. A minute later, they landed, Tom got out, the vehicle took off again.

  The episode felt unreal. Eric brought his face to a pane and stared. The city fell behind him, the bay, the coast whereon he glimpsed kilometers of magnificent surf. He was over the ocean. Luna stood low ahead, near the full, casting a witchcraft of brilliance across the waves. In its presence, not many stars were visible. Was that bright one Alpha Centauri, the beacon for which men steered when first they departed the Solar System? Were those four the Southern Cross, famous in books he had read as a boy? The constellations were strange. Maia was drowned in distance.