The Canopy Of Time Part 15

2.

You came unarmed into the warring city. Your ship lay abandoned on a hill some miles away. You walked as if among the properties of a dream, carrying your own supplies, and demanded to see the leader of the rebel army. They put innumerable difficulties in your way, but .eventually you stood before him because none could gainsay you.

The rebel leader was a hard man with an eye missing, and he was busy when you entered. He stared at you with deep mistrust through that single eye; the guards behind him stroked their fusers.

"I'll give you three minutes," One-Eye said.

"I don't want your time," you said easily, "I have plenty of my own. I also have a plan bigger than any plan of yours. Do you wish me to show you how to sub-jugate the Region of Yinnisfar?"

Now One-Eye looked at you again. He saw-how should it be said?-he saw you were not as other men, that you were vivider than they. But the Region of Yinnisfar lay long light years away, impregnable in the heart of the galaxy; for twice ten million years its reign had been undisputed among twice ten million planets.

"You're mad!" One-Eye said. "Get out! Our objective is to conquer this city-not a galaxy."

You did not move. Why did the guards not act then? Why did not One-Eye shoot you down before you had begun your task?

"This civil war you wage here is fruitless," you said. "What are you fighting for? A City. The next street!

A. power house! These are spoils fit only for hyenas. I offer you the wealth of Yinnisfar and you mew for the town hall!"

One-Eye stood up, showing his teeth. The unkempt hair on his neck rose like p.r.i.c.kles. His leather cheeks turned mauve. He jerked up his fuser and thrust it towards your face. You did nothing; there was nothing you needed to do. Confounded, One-Eye sat down again. He had not met such relentless indifference to threats before, and was impressed.

"Owlenj is only a poor planet with a long list of oppression," he muttered. "But it is my world, so I have to fight for it and the people on it, to protect their rights and liberties. I admit that a man of my tactical ability deserves a better command; possibly when we've brought this city to its knees. . . ."

Because time was on your side, you had patience. Because you had patience, you listened to One-Eye.

His talk was at once grandiose and petty; he spoke largely of the triumph of human rights and narrowly of the shortage of trained soldiers. He wanted Heaven on earth, but he was a platoon short.

He was a man who won respect from his fellows-or fear if not respect. Yet his principles had been old-fashioned a million millenia ago, before the beginnings of s.p.a.ce travel. They had worn wafer thin, used over and over again by countless petty generals: the, need for force, the abolition of injustice, the belief that right would win through. You listened with a chill pity, aware that the age-old and majestic intricacies of the Self-Perpetuating War had shrunk to this pocket of trouble on Owlenj.

When he stopped orating, you told One-Eye your plan for conquering Yinnisfar. You told him that living on Owlenj, on the cold rim of the galaxy, he could have no idea of the richness of those central worlds; that all the fables the children of Owlenj learnt in their meagre beds did not convey one-tenth of the wealth of the Suzeraino of Yinnisfar; that every man there had his destiny and happiness guarded imperishably; that every fruit warmed by the mid-galactic suns contained as much juice as fifty of Owlenj's wretched mangoes.

"Well, we were always under-privileged out here," growled One-Eye. "What can anyone here do against the gower of the Region?"

So you told him, unsmilingly, that there was one respect in which Yinnisfar was inferior; it could not, in all its systems, command a general who displayed the sagacity and fearlessness that One-Eye was renowned for; its peoples had lost their old l.u.s.ty arrogance and declined into mere reverie-begetters.

"All that is so," One-Eye admitted reluctantly, "though I have never cared to say so myself. They are a decadent lot!"

"Decadent! That is the word," you exclaimed. "They are decadent beyond all belief. They hang like a giant over-ripe peach on a tree, waiting to drop and splash" -you ill.u.s.trated your words with a dramatic gesture- "against the iron of your attack!"

"You really think so?"

"I know so! Listen. How long has there been peace throughout the galaxy-except, of course, for your little difference of opinion here? For millions of years, is that not so? Is it not so peaceful that you could hear a pin drop in the s.p.a.celanes? So peaceful that even interstellar trade has dwindled almost to nothing? I tell you, my friend, the mighty nations of the stars have nodded off to sleep! Their warriors, their technicians, have been untested for generations. Their science rusts beneath a pool of complacence!"

Now you had One-Eye on his feet again. This time he was yours, the first of your list of conquests. He let out a roar of excitement.

"By Thraldemener, it is as you say!" he shouted. "They wouldn't know how to fight. They are degener-ate! Come, there is no time to be lost. We will begin the liberation of the peoples of Yinnisfar tomorrow, my friend. Why couldn't I have thought of the idea myself?"

"Wait!" you said. You touched his tattered sleeve as he came round the desk; he felt something of your vitality course through him, and waited obediently. "If Owlenj is to conquer, it must be united. Your forces are not sufficient in themselves to match the dying might of the Region. The civil war must end."

At this One-Eye frowned, looked uncertain. The civil war was a cause dear to his heart; above all else he had wanted to reduce this little city to ashes. The greater greed won; yet still he procrastinated.

"You can't stop a civil war just like that," he pro-tested. "It's been going on for five years now. The cause is very dear to the people's hearts-they're dying in the name of liberty for justice itself."

"No doubt," you agreed. "All the same, they would tolerate a treaty with the forces of injustice in exchange for the chance to eat regularly and sleep comfortably. I'm sure they don't exactly relish the sound of cosfire punctuating their thoughts."

"Supposing they would," One-Eye said. "How do we go about making peace, aside from crushing the enemy completely?"

"You and I go and see the enemy commander," you said.

And although he protested and swore, that was what you and One-Eye did.

You emerged from the rebel hiding place into an aisle of the city's ruined cathedral. Treading carefully over the debris, you left by what had been the West Gate and came to the improvised shields of lead and sand which marked One-Eye's present forward position. Here One-Eye began to argue again; you silenced him. With one man to accompany you and bear the white flag of truce, you meekly put on a radiation suit as One-Eye had done and climbed out into the street.

This had once been a fine avenue. Now the tall exoquag trees were splintered like bone, and the frosts of many buildings fizzled like moist sherbet. Several robo-tanks lay locked together on the scarred pavements. Nothing moved. But as you walked up that suburban battleground, you must have been aware of the unseen eyes of the enemy watching you behind their levelled sights. It must have seemed, again, that you walked amid the grotesque properties of a dream.

At the top of the avenue, a mechanical voice halted you and asked you what you wanted. When its attendant echoes had gone chattering away among the ruins, One-Eye bellowed out his name and demanded to see the enemy general.

Within two minutes, a transparent disc using beamed power dropped out of the sky. A door slid open and the mechanical voice shouted, "Please get in."

Entering with your two attendants, you were at once lifted to a height just above the rooftops. The disc flicked two blocks to the north before sinking again. The door opened and you climbed out.

3.

You were in a slaughter yard. No animals were here now, although a wall with a line of fuser marks heart-high showed that the place had not entirely abandoned its ancient purposes.

Two captains met you under a white flag. They saluted One-Eye and led you out of the yard, down a deep ramp. You descended to a part of the old-fashioned pneumatic running under the city, where you removed your radiation suits. Here a maze of new corridors had been constructed; down one of them you were led until a white-painted door was reached. The grim captains indicated you were to go in.

You entered.

"Well, you traitor, what makes you think you will leave here alive?" the enemy general asked One-Eye.

His uniform was trim if worn, his eyes had a quelling fire to them; he walked as true soldiers have walked since time immemorial: as if the discs of his backbone had all been welded together. And Welded had a little mous-tache which now bristled with triumph at the sight of his foe.

Temporarily forgetting all but his old feud, One-Eye advanced as if he would tear that moustache from the other's upper lip "Shake hands, you two," you said impatiently. "Come to terms immediately. The sooner we blast off, the better."

Welded looked at you for the first time; he seemed instantly to comprehend that it was you rather than One-Eye with whom he had to deal. Welded was an intelligent man. Instantly, he was ice-cold; his voice ground straight off a glacier.

"I have no idea who you are, fellow," he said. "But if I have any suspicion of impertinence from you, I'll have you shot down like a dog. With your friend here, I must be more careful-his head is destined for the city gate. You are entirely expendable."

"On that I reserve my own opinion," you said. "We do not come here to bandy threats but to make you an offer. If you are prepared to listen, listen now."

In the scale of emotions, there is a stage beyond fury where fury goes off the boil, and a stage beyond anger where it merges into fear. As Welded reached this point, he stiffened as if he would snap. He could say nothing. You began to talk of Yinnisfar, explaining the situation to him as you had to One-Eye.

Welded was a harder man to deal with than his enemy, more seasoned, more sure of himself. Though a faint, concupiscent smile curled his lip when you spoke of the richness of the Region, he never unbent.

When you had finished, he spoke.

"Are you a native of Owlenj, stranger?" he asked.

"No," you said.

"What is your world, stranger?"

"It is a planet beyond the galaxy."

"There is nothing between the galaxies, only darkness like teeming coal dust. What is the name of the world of yours, stranger?"

"It is unnamed," you said.

Now Welded snapped a finger angrily.

"You have an odd way of trying to win my confidence, stranger," he said. "What do the inhabitants of your world call it?"

"There are no inhabitants," you said. "I am the first. It is unnamed because I have not named it."

"Then I will name it," Welded snarled. "I name it Lies! All Lies! Every word a lie! You are a spy from distant Yinnisfar, a dupe, an a.s.sa.s.sin! Guards! Guards! -take this fool into the yard and make a puddle of him!"

As he shouted, he wrenched a fuser from its holster and turned it on to you. One-Eye kicked out, caught Welded's wrist with the toe of his boot, and sent the weapon flying across the room.

"Listen, you lunatic!" he roared at Welded. "Would you kill this man who offers us so much? Suppose he is a spy from YInnisfar-would that not make him the ideal man to lead us back there? We need not trust him. We can watch him all the time. Let us seize the advant-age of having him in our hands!"

Even while One-Eye was speaking, the ceiling had lifted three feet; through the widening gap, armed men catapulted themselves into the room, pinning you and the rebel leader into different corners. In no time, you were enmeshed in clawed metal nets.

Welded stayed them with a raised hand.

"There is grain of truth in what you say," he admitted reluctantly. "Guards, leave us. We will talk of this matter."

Two hours later, when orderlies brought in wine for you and the commanders, the arguing was over and plans were being discussed. By tacit agreement, the ques-tion of your origin was abandoned; both men had decided that wherever you came from it was not from the Region of Yinnisfar. n.o.body from that vast empire had bothered with the outer rim of the galaxy for millennia.

"I came to you," you told them, "because this is one of the few planets near my world on which any form of military organization still survives."

At that they were flattered. They failed to see that you regarded them merely as remnants of an outdated creed. The only advantage of a military organization over any other, from your point of view, was its ability to get into action without inordinate delay.

Two hours later still, when one of Welded's orderlies entered with food for them, Welded was just making the last of numerous calls to the garrisons of Owlenj.

"How many interplanetary vessels do you hold that can be put into active service at once?" he asked into the speaker. ". . . Yes, all told. I see: fifteen. How many of those are light-drive? .. . Only five....

What type are those five?"

He wrote the answers down, reading them out as he did so, for your benefit and One-Eye's.

"One freighter. . . . One liner converted to military use.... One trooper.... And two Invaders. Good.

Now give me their tonnages."

He wrote the tonnages down, scowled, nodded and said with authoritative sharpness to the unseen com-mander, "Excellent. You will receive instructions in the morning as regards fuelling and equipping of those five ships. As for the other ten-get your Electronics Arm cracking on them straight away. I want them equipped with light-drive and ready to bust vacuum within forty-eight hours. Is that understood? . . .

And please confine all your men to camp until further orders. Is that under-stood? Good. Any queries? ...

I leave it all to your ingenuity, Commander. A jolt in the teeth for him," Welded said with satisfaction as he signed off.

For the first time, he regarded the orderly who had brought in the food.

"Is the general Cease Fire being obeyed?" he demanded.

"Absolutely," Orderly said. "The people are dancing in the streets."

"We'll give them something to dance about soon," Welded said, rubbing his hands. He turned to One-Eye, who was juggling with pieces of paper.

"What's our strength?" he asked.

"Depends how many of these light-drive conversion jobs actually materialize."

"With our present shortage of men and materials, say fifty per cent," Welded said.

"Right. . . ." One-Eye scanned his one eye over the sheet of figures.

"Including my own fleets, say a hundred and ten ships, about two-thirds of which will be military craft."

They looked at each other gloomily. Provincial though they were, the number sounded faintly small to them.

"It is ample," you said confidently.

They turned to the formidable problem of rations. The fleet could reckon on being vacuum-borne for two weeks before reaching the margins of the Region; another two and a half weeks to reach the heart; and another three days if they were to get to the pivotal world of Yinnisfar itself.

"And that allows no time for delay caused by evasive action or battle or such," Welded said.

"Pfff! We don't evade-we go through them like knives through flesh," One-Eye said. He more than Welded was infected by your confidence.

"They may capitulate before we reach Yinnisfar itself," you said. "Then we head for the nearest planet and your men can eat themselves silly."

"We must have a safety margin," Welded insisted. "Let's call it a six weeks' journey, eh? And we'll be five and a half thousand strong...." He shook his head. "We can cope with the air supply all right. The calorie intake is going to be the snag. Those men'll eat their heads off in that time; there's just not that amount of food on all Owlenj. Deep freeze is our only answer. Everyone below the rank of major not on essential ship's crew travels frozen. Get me Medical on the blower, Orderly-I want to speak to the Physician-General."

Orderly hastened to obey.

"What's next?" Welded asked. He was just beginning to enjoy himself.

"Weapons," One-Eye said. "First, fissionable material. My forces can't help much there. Our stocks happen to be lower than usual."

"Here's a report of our holdings as of last week," Welded said, tossing a stereoed list over. "Stocks are very meagre, I'm afraid."