Cascade Point and Other Stories Part 20

Because Earth was going to need all the resources she could muster. Glancing involuntarily at the sky, Javier shivered as he remembered that terrible hospital vision. Somewhere out there, sometime in the future, a war fleet powerful enough and vicious enough to burn off an entire planet was going to win a great victory. If the race that owned that fleet was expanding their own empire into s.p.a.ce, they would someday reach the Colonia... perhaps very soon.

And if the cost of developing the Ca.s.sandra ability into a weapon against that threat was enhanced public hatred and the loss of a few lives, then so be it. It would, Javier knew, be worth such a price.

Even if one of those lives was his own.

Afterword.

"The Ca.s.sandra" was one of those stories that I simply couldn't let go of, no matter how many rejection slips it collected. From 1979 to 1983 it underwent two complete rewrites and quite a bit of incidental fiddling on top of that. Eventually, the persistence paid off.

Why I pushed the thing so hard is a little more difficult to explain. Certainly it's not a particularly upbeat story (and if you've made it this far you've surely noticed my fondness for upbeat stories); in fact, it almost qualifies as a tragedy. And, unlike the case in many of my stories, I would emphatically NOT want to be in the protagonists shoes.

All I can suggest is that it was the story's underlying philosophy that had a grip on me. In an era where mankind too often considers itself to be a meaningless accident of nature, perhaps I needed to remind people that that wasn't necessarily so.

We could just as easily be important-even vital-to the universe at large; and until and unless that's proven wrong, I intend to keep on believing it. You can't very well care about people, after all, unless you feel those people are ultimately worth the effort.

I wax overly philosophical. Let's get to the next story.

Dragon Pax

Scholars and doomsayers had been predicting the Great War for almost a century beforehand, and when it finally came it was brief and furious, erupting like a fusion bomb among the sixty worlds of the Empire. The more strategic planets were fought over by as many as seven separate factions, and were often reduced to rubble in the process. Other planets-the poor or unimportant ones-were largely neglected by the starfleets, and were left to their individual fates as s.p.a.ce travel all but disappeared.

Power, not the destruction of civilization, was the goal of those in the struggle; but, too late, they realized they were in over their heads. For although each faction had carefully calculated its strength and chances before making its move, none had antic.i.p.ated the wild-card effect of the Dragonmasters who had suddenly appeared from nowhere onto the scene. These twelve men-virtual unknowns, all of them-had no warships and only minimal troops. But the powerful nightmare shapes that were their dragons evened the odds tremendously.

Huge, virtually indestructible, appearing and vanishing on command, the dragons wreaked havoc on any ground forces that opposed their masters, crushing soldier and armored treader with equal ease.

Their size and sheer impossibility inspired almost universal fear and hatred, but it also prompted new alliances and betrayals among the warring factions as each tried to guess who the ultimate victor would be. But the forces unleashed were too destructive and the scramble for power quickly became a fight for survival. For many, even this goal was not to be achieved.

One of the few planets untouched by the war was Troas, and this was due more to luck than good planning. Rosette, the western end of Troas's single continental land ma.s.s, was the summer home of the Emperor and a resort area for members of the Imperial Court. Had anybody of importance been there when hostilities broke out, Rosette would undoubtedly have been burned to a cinder. But the Emperor was back on the capital, and the relative handful of Imperial troops were quickly withdrawn from Rosette for more important duties.

Royd Varian was three years old when the war began; he was five when Dragonmaster Harun Grail arrived at Troas and declared himself absolute dictator.

At his age, Royd knew nothing of the politics of the situation. All he knew was that, later that year, his father was taken away to fight against the Easterlings from the other end of the continent, a war from which he never returned. Lying awake night after night, tears streaming down his cheeks, Royd listened to his mothers m.u.f.fled sobs in the next room and resolved that, someday, he would kill the Dragonmaster.

His mother died barely a year later, and Royd-with no close relatives at hand-spent the rest of his childhood in a state-run orphanage. Though with the pa.s.sage of the years the fire of his hatred waned, his resolve remained firm, and as he grew up all aspects of his life began to shape themselves toward his goal.

He studied history and political science in school, the better to know his enemy. On his own he learned military science and the use of weapons, and he worked at building up his physical strength and stamina. He sent letters asking about the chances of working on the household staff at either of the Dragonmaster's two estates, and landed a temporary job as mason's a.s.sistant; at about the same time he made his first delicate contacts with the outlawed Rosette Freedom Party. He rose through the ranks upon both sides, his single-minded determination driving him over all obstacles.

And finally, at age twenty-four, he considered himself ready.

Royd hefted the little four-shot dart gun doubtfully. "I don't know, Phelan," he told the tower of muscle standing beside him in the backroom darkness. "This doesn't pack much punch."

Phelan Hapspur shrugged. "You want something with punch or something you can hide? We've only got a limited a.r.s.enal, you know."

"Yeah." Royd frowned, then stuck the gun into his waistband, pulling his tunic down to conceal it. "All right, I guess this'll have to do. I'd better go now; the loading should be finished out front."

"Good luck." Phelan slapped him on the shoulder. "We'll be watching for your signal."

Royd nodded and slipped out the door into the meat market's main room. A burly man in a bloodstained ap.r.o.n came up and handed him a piece of paper. "All loaded, sir," he said. "If you'll sign here..."Royd glanced through the store window in time to see one of the butchers boys closing the doors on the cold-truck outside. As one of the food buyers for the Dragonmaster's city palace it was Royd's responsibility to personally check all the meat as it was loaded; but he knew Temmic could be trusted. Taking the paper, he glanced over it and then signed.

"Thanks, Mr. Varian," Temmic nodded. "See you next week?"

Probably not. "Sure, Temmic. So long."

Stepping out into the afternoon sunlight, Royd paused for a moment to listen.

Above the normal city sounds around him, he could just make out the low roar of many vehicles. Grail's convoy, returning from the Dragonmaster's country retreat as scheduled. Royd squinted off in the proper direction-sometimes Grail had the smaller of his two dragons lead his convoys-but nothing could be seen. No matter; the Dragonmaster would soon be home.

Climbing into the cab of his cold-truck, Royd started the engine and headed toward the palace, threading through the mixture of pedestrian, animal, and motorized vehicle traffic with practiced skill. Within a few minutes he was at the outer wall of the palace grounds. The gate guard pa.s.sed him through with a nod, and he drove another two kilometers through sculped lawns and gardens to the huge building itself.

Entering one of the service bays, he helped the kitchen workers unload the cold-truck and then chatted with one of the cooks for a few minutes before returning to his bed in the number two servants' dorm. He was now off duty until later in the evening. Then, by prearrangement with one of the other servants, he would help clear the dishes from Civil Affairs Director Marwitz's customary late- evening supper... a task that would bring him to within fifty meters of Grail's own office suite.

Lying back on his bunk, Royd closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep.

Curiously, despite the nervous tension slowly building within him, he felt no elation or pride in what he was about to do. a.s.sa.s.sinating Dragonmaster Grail had long ago ceased to be just a matter of personal vengeance. It was something he had to do for the people of Rosette, for while Grail and his dragons lived there could be no freedom. And if it cost Royd his life-as it probably would-it was still a fair bargain.

At seven-thirty he got up, changed clothes-making sure no one saw the gun-and reported to the majordomo for work. With three other boys he was sent up to the palace's fifth floor.

Civil Affairs Director Clars Marwitz was a short, dark-eyed man with a perpetual scowl and an acrid personality. Royd had disliked him from the first, and that opinion had been going steadily downhill ever since. His power over the lives of Rosette's people was absolute, and he used it ruthlessly to crush any dissention that he found. Next to Grail himself, Marwitz was the most hated man in Rosette.

Still, Royd managed to give him a vacuous servant's smile as they collected the Director's dishes.

Back in the hall, Royd took a deep breath. This was it. "You go on ahead," he told the other three servants. "I'm going to check down the hall and see if there's anything to pick up in the Dragonmaster's office."

Picking up an empty tray, he turned and started walking, not giving them the chance to warn him that no one could enter Grail's suite without an invitation. The hall was very long, and Royd's throat was very dry by the time he reached the Dragonmaster's door.

Two men wearing hard faces and the gray uniforms of Grail's personal bodyguard flanked the portal; their laser-sighted automatic rifles pointed a centimeter or so to either side of him. "That's close enough, kid," one of them growled as Royd came to within three meters. "State your business."

"Hey, I'm just a waiter," Royd said, staring with suitable nervousness at the guns. He'd been holding the tray vertically in front of him, concealing the dart pistol clutched in his right hand; now he lifted the tray to a waist-high horizontal position, bringing the gun invisibly to bear on one of the guards. "I just came by to pick up any dishes that Dragonmaster Grail might need washed."

"Anyone send for you? No? Then scram."

"Yes, sir." Gently, Royd squeezed the trigger, turning the tray and gun slightly. The drug was supposed to act almost instantly to paralyze the nervous system-if the darts penetrated the guards' clothing, that is. He fired again. "I just thought-"

Without a word, the first man crumpled to the ground. The other wasted his last second gaping in bewilderment, then he too collapsed.

Royd dropped the tray and s.n.a.t.c.hed up one of the rifles, shoving his dart gun back in his waistband. He tried the door; it was locked. Stepping back, he raised the rifle and gave the lock a full second on automatic. The wood and metal shattered, and a single kick sent it swinging inward. Royd charged in as the hall behind him filled up with the raucous clang of alarm bells.

The room he had entered was an anteroom of sorts, with three other doors heading inward from it. A saucer-eyed woman sat frozen at a desk by one of the doors, her fingers still poised over her scriber. Keeping his gun pointed toward the doors, Royd snapped, "Where is he?"

She might have been carved from stone. Cursing under his breath, Royd studied the doors. Barely visible under the leftmost was a thin line of light. He strode to it, wrenched it open, and stepped in, rifle at the ready.

Sitting at a desk in the center of a luxuriously furnished office, his eyebrows raised quizzically, was Dragonmaster Harun Grail.Royd raised his rifle. "Don't move, Grail."

The Dragonmaster's gaze never faltered. "You've got exactly one second to put that gun down before I call out my dragon," he said with icy calmness.

"Don't waste your breath on bluffs; I know better. Neither of your dragons is small enough to fit in a room this size. You're all alone now."

"All right." Grail's tone hadn't changed. "What do you want?"

"Your life."

"Why?"

He was stalling for time, Royd knew; waiting for reinforcements to arrive.

"Ask the devil," he retorted.

"You can't escape," Grail pointed out. "Soldiers are on their way right now."

"That doesn't matter. What matters is that Rosette will be free again once you're dead."

"You're a fool if you believe that."

Royd opened his mouth to reply, but just then he heard the sound of running feet out in the hall. He aimed the rifle- And with a miniature thunderclap of displaced air a five-meter-long black creature appeared, its serpentine neck arching high over Grail's desk, its wings spread in defense of its master. Fiery red eyes glared balefully at Royd; taloned paws rose against him. Reflexively, Royd pulled the trigger; for all their effect, the steel-jacketed slugs might have been confetti. At least two of the ricochets came close enough to hear.

"You see," Grail's voice came from behind the outstretched wings as the echoes died away, "I have three dragons, not two."

"d.a.m.n," Royd breathed-and just then a half-dozen soldiers stormed through the door behind him.

Wrenching his gaze from the dragon, he spun around, rifle ready. But these weren't Grail's professional bullies; they were just common soldiers, many of them draftees-the sort of people whom he was trying to free. Besides, killing them wouldn't buy him more than a few minutes at most. Taking his finger off the trigger, he lowered the weapon and prepared to die.

"Don't kill him!" Grail's voice snapped from behind him. Royd half-turned, a bitter curse ready for delivery... and then the soldiers were swarming over him.

Something wet and aromatic hit his face and the world went black.- He awoke slowly, by degrees, as if his head had gone on a long journey and had to be coaxed back. Something was pressing against his back; only slowly did he realize he was lying face-up on a cot of some sort. With a supreme act of will, he managed to force his eyes open.

"How do you feel?" a gruff voice behind him asked.

"All-all right." Gritting his teeth, Royd sat up, fighting paroxysms of dizziness and nausea. Carefully, he turned around.

Dragonmaster Grail was sitting on a chair, watching him.

Royd gazed back, wondering briefly if this was a dream. "What are you doing here?" he croaked, his throat strangely dry.

"I want to talk with you."

Frowning, Royd looked around him. The room he was in, though small and plain, was clean and airy. The two chairs looked comfortable; the cot he was sitting on was soft and had clean sheets and blankets. Whatever this was, it was no ordinary cell.

Grail interpreted Royd's inspection correctly. "No, you're not in my dungeon.

This is a sort of guest room I've had set up for you."

"Why bother? You're going to shoot me anyway. Or do you want me in good shape for the torture?"

"There will be no torture, and perhaps no shooting either. Tell me, why did you try to kill me?"

"That again? What difference does it make?"

"It matters a great deal to me." Grail's voice was low, but strangely intense.

Royd looked at him, seeing for perhaps the first time the wrinkles in the dictator's face, the slight stiffness in his movements. How old was Grail, anyway?

Royd suddenly realized he didn't know. "I wanted to kill you because you've turned Rosette into a repressive, regimented society where individuals have no rights and no purpose except to serve you. You've had hundreds of your opponents jailed or murdered and started at least three wars with Easterland since you took over."

"You sound like the Rosette Freedom Party's recruiting speech," Grail said dryly, "but I can see you really believe it. Oh, don't worry, you won't have to answer any questions about your friends-I already know everything worth knowing about them."You're right, of course; I've done most everything you mentioned. But have you taken note of the good things I've done for Rosette? When the Great War started and all the Imperial troops and technicians were pulled out, Rosette went right to the brink of total collapse. Most of your food and machinery had been imported from offworld, you know, and those supplies were diverted pretty d.a.m.n quick to more vital fronts.

"Now Rosette's own food production is way up; in the last four years we've actually had crop surpluses. We're now making our own machinery and vehicles, and have two new power plants well into the design stage. And those 'wars' you mentioned were attempts by the Easterlings to invade Rosette. We successfully fought them off-"

"Fought them off!" Royd spat. "Slaughtered them, you mean, with your machine guns, artillery, and those d.a.m.n dragons-"

Abruptly, Grail stood up. "Look, you young idiot," he snapped, "without the dragons all of Rosette would have been overrun by hordes of Easterlings and trampled into the dust."

"d.a.m.n it, all they wanted was food. There are people starving over there!"

"You want to starve with them?" Without warning, Grail was seized by a coughing fit. He sat back down, and Royd briefly considered jumping him. But the older man's eyes were alert... and the room was large enough to hold the dragon he had seen earlier. Royd stayed where he was.

Grail finished coughing and took a couple of deep breaths. "Look, Varian," he said quietly, using Royd's name for the first time. "There are twenty million people in Rosette and just over a billion in Easterland. Even at the current rate of food production here we can't possibly relieve their annual crop shortfalls. In five or ten years we may be able to do it, but until then there's just no way. Their only hope is to leave us alone and to let us put our full energy into developing our economy and our land-Rosette's got the richest soil on the planet, though a lot of it's still tied up uselessly in the old Imperial estates. It's a long-term hope, sure, but it's the best we can offer them."

"It's hard to be patient when you're starving," Royd muttered. Something was off-key here; Grail's speeches and official p.r.o.nouncements had always painted Easterland as a deadly enemy whose destruction was vital to Rosette's security.

What was this talk about supplying them with food?

Grail smiled faintly when Royd put the question to him. "The 'Easterland threat' campaign was put together by Clars Marwitz, my Civil Affairs Director, to try and unite Rosette behind me. Marwitz is shrewd-d.a.m.n shrewd-but he's power-hungry and completely amoral. Bears close watching.... Anyway, I went along with the plan because I'd rather have all you dissidents working to help build up Rosette's potential than inciting riots and forcing me to put you in prison. Most of you are smart and educated, and Rosette needs all the help you can give her."A frown had been growing steadily across Royd's forehead, in direct proportion to his confusion. "What's going on? Why are you telling me all this?"

Grail's eyes bored into Royd's. "I want you to take over as head of state when I die."

For a long moment there was dead silence in the room. "What?" Royd whispered at last.

"You heard me. Rosette's developed about as far as it can under an absolute dictatorship. It needs to be nudged toward something more decentralized-a const.i.tutional monarchy, perhaps, as a first step. But I can't do that."

"Why not? There's no one to stop you."

Grail sighed. "All right. Suppose I announced I was reorganizing the government and wanted the Rosette Freedom Party to share power with me. Would your leaders be willing to drop by the palace and discuss the issue?"

"Not likely," Royd admitted. "They'd think it was a trap."

"You see the problem, then. I'm known as a dictator, and there's no way I can easily change that image."

"But you could abdicate. Go into retirement."