The younger man raised his eyebrows. "We?"
Donol nodded. "Us—the resistance."
Arran chuckled. "I see. What if you should be captured and tortured? Would the method not then be useless?"
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His brother's face reddened and his voice became a hiss. "It is useless now if we remain ignorant of it! You are being obtuse, Arran!"
"I am being cautious. But what difference does it make if a man cannot trust his own brother? I hove to in polar orbit, which Hanoverian defenses are not well suited to detect. It is somewhat like that natural tendency upon which certain predators depend of their prey to be wary of every direction but up. I had the lubberlift modified and lowered halfway into the atmosphere, whereupon it released an un-powered aerostat which I piloted the rest of the way. Are you satisfied?"
Donol nodded, licking his lips. "More than satisfied, Arran." As Morven would be, he thought, once informed of this weakness in his defense. Nor had the possible implication, that Arran was alone upon Skye, escaped him. "Is it a large fleet you have brought with you?"
"You are full of questions."
"And you of suspicion and evasion. I only wished to know how soon we might throw ourselves against the Usurper. Forget that I asked."
Evincing world-weary regret that frankness, even between kinsmen, had become so diflftcult, Arran shook his head and placed a hand over his brother's. "No, it is only right that you be informed. It will be necessary to wait a while. I have been long out of touch and will need to learn much before I act. I only brought the one starship, my corsair Osprey, which I afterward sent away into the Deep to await prearranged rendezvous."
Donol smiled. "How gratifying that my baby brother, thrown upon his own resources, has in so short a time become not a mere captain or fleet commander, but famous throughout the Monopolity." He stood. "I hope Old Henry appreciates the honor, as I hope you appreciate the attention you are about to receive upon account of it. Guard! Arrest this man at once! Look to your weapons, he is the infamous starship-robber, Henry Martyn!"
"/ believe we can do better than that!" ;
Donol whirled. "Drector-Protempore!" 1
It was indeed the Black Usurper who stood behind him, ^ free of his wheeled chair, flanked by Oplytes and a pair of
human officers, thrustibles at the ready. Before Henry Martyn could lift his arm from beneath the table, Morven raised a peculiar object, consisting of a pair of upright, translucent cylinders seething with light deep at their centers, fist-sized, connected at one end by a handle and at their other by an arc of heavy wire which bore at its center a small parabolic dish. The air pulsed between Henry Martyn and the device as the light inside the cylinders boiled with increased fury. He sat unmoving, body rigid, face contorted with agony. Morven relaxed his grip and his victim's shoulders dropped. Henry Martyn sighed, his eyes unlit by expression or intelligence. The room had fallen into silence, a few prudent figures near its edges using the distraction to slip away unnoticed.
"You will arise and go with my soldiers, Arran Islay, doing everything bidden." Morven turned to one of his officers. "Take his weapons."
Henry Martyn's chair made a scraping noise in the disconcerting quiet. Offering no resistance, he allowed himself to be disarmed.
"Alert my technicians. Tell them to sharpen their wits as well as their probes. I wish this to last many days." He turned to Donol, holding up the device. "Not that there is anything we cannot now learn by more sophisticated means. You have done well, young man. I apologize for surprising you. I wanted to try this with the most recalcitrant subject I could imagine. You have earned a reward. Would you care to be present beside me in the dungeon?"
A smile split Donol's face. "I have looked forward to it a long time, sir. I mean to enjoy every minute!"
Chapter XLV: The Executor-General
Outsized boots trod the graniplastic flagging.
"I should like," the Black Usurper declared to the small party accompanying him, "to determine how aware of their surroundings subjects remain under influence of this device."
He held up the object with which he had so easily made Henry Martyn prisoner. The twin cylinders, with their swirling interior glow, could have lit the way along this corridor. The parabolic dish cast leering shadows. Receiving no reaction from his companions—Donol, two human oflScers, half a dozen Oplytes they commanded, and Henry Martyn himself, blank-eyed and obedient—Morven shrugged. He was in too good a mood to permit this occasion to be spoiled. What he had, at so much trouble and expense, accomplished with his daughter over many years, he was about to inflict upon whole worlds in a figurative instant. He supposed that what he felt was glee.
"For example," he mused, "would the young man hear if I were to tell him that this very room—Lieutenant, stop here—is the same in which his late father was tortured to death?"
Even with the most modem environmental controls Morven had imported, the room was cold. Condensation formed and dripped upon the smooth walls. The only reaction he received was that E>onol dropped his gaze and swallowed. His brother appeared unaffected by the news. Without word or sign, he simply lay upon the operating table as instructed.
"Where the Ceo are my technicians? They are never here when I need them! They were ordered to meet me here! By the Ceo, I shall strap one or two of their number down and
see whether it improves their—what is it now?" A member of his office staff had appeared in the still-open door.
"Sir, a message has arrived by lasercom from Aly-sabethport! A military flotilla has taken orbit, under command of the Executor-General! Troops have lubberlifted down and §-flyers are reported upon their way this minute!"
Morven stared. "What?"
"Sir, a military flotilla has—"
He waved a hand. "I heard you! What could the fool want?"
The nervous administrator swallowed, answering the question Morven had asked of himself. "I am afraid I really could not say—'*
"Get back upstairs and say whatever you are not afraid to say! Find out what they want. Stall them! I shall join you directly."
As the fortunate clerk escaped, Morven turned to one of his oflftcers. "Captain, take your warriors to my apartments. Collect my daughter along the way and see that she is well protected. Lieutenant, guard this prisoner—from outside influences, as I doubt he is inclined to run. Donol, stay with him." He held up the alien device. "I will deal with this interruption and return as quickly as I can, do you understand?"
Donol gulped. "Yes, sir."
"It should not take long. We shall lock this door behind us." With these words, and a mechanical clash, he left them.
Self-conscious silence descended over the pair, broken only by a rumble of activity overhead, their own breathing, and dripping along the walls. The officer paced, hands at his back, bouncing upon his toes, essaying a half-mute whistle and thinking better of it, looking from Donol to the figure lying upon the table. At last, he bent over the unconscious form. "The infamous star-raider Henry Martyn, eh? Why, he's no more than a kid! All the same, hadn't we better truss the little bugger up, just to be on the safe side?"
Donol opened his mouth. "The Drector-Protempore—"
A hard fist spread the lieutenant's nose across his cheek and deprived him of consciousness. Deft fingers upon his
416 HENRY MARTYN
forearm deprived him of his weapon. A boot heel upon his larynx deprived him of further concerns.
"Arran!" Donol screamed the name.
Animated more by fury than by strength, Henry Martyn sprang across the room, seized his older brother by the throat, and pinned him to the wall, his other hand holding the lens of the thrustible within a millimeasure of the bridge of Don-ol's nose. '*Where is Lia? You have three seconds! One! Two!"
Donol choked, "Your old room in the tower! I beg you, Arran—"
Keeping his weapon steady, the brigand made rapid search ' of his brother's clothing. "No key. It is a print lock. Must I drag you
there—" he showed teeth, "—or can I just lop off your treacherous hand and take it with me?"
DonoFs answer was another scream. "An override thille in a niche beside the door! I swear! But what good is it? We are locked in!"
Henry Martyn released him. Donol sagged against the wall, j held up by friction alone. "You are locked in, Donol. If you ' have lied to me, I shall take pleasure doing to you what I just did to Morven's toy soldier!"
He turned and ran a hand along the seam between two graniplastic blocks beside the door. Having played in these chambers as a child, he knew their every secret, few of which he had ever shared with the adults of his family. This knowledge had been crucial in his decision to return to Skye. A loud click sounded and a section of the wall swung aside. Without another word to his brother, he slipped through, letting it swing shut behind him. A louder click persuaded Donol there was little hope of repeating Arran's escape. In this he was proven correct all too quickly, for, cautiously glancing one way down the secret passageway he entered, Henry Martyn just missed a shadowy figure which took his place with Donol in the dungeon.
Remaining as much as possible within a network of hidden ] passages he had explored as a boy, in the end he had no choice but to abandon it where it was interrupted by some ancient '■ effort at remodeling. Planning to reenter a few measures away, down a well-traveled corridor, he was appropriately cautious. Approaching a right-hand bend, thrustible ready.
he clung to the wall, keeping movements quiet, scraping his back along the blocks, stopping to listen. With the greatest care he could muster, he poked his head round for a glance—
And was seized by the hair! Massive gray-green anns whirled him round and slammed him into a wall. This Oplyte and another, with their superhuman hearing and sense of smell, had been waiting for him. He wrenched free, heedless of pain or potential loss of scalp. Before the second giant could seize him, he thrust a bolt of kinergy into its eye, destroying one side of its brain. Compartmented by its conversion into a fighting machine, it was only slowed by what should have been a mortal blow. It might die of the wound, in time. Now it groaned and pawed the air, attempting to grab him. He was busy with the first Oplyte which had triggered an alarm and also tried to sweep him into its grasp. Repeated thrusts at its chest and solar plexus proved futile. Before he was aware of it, his designator flickered and died, along with all kinergic power. With seeming defeat of the rebels and Morven's attention elsewhere, his troops had grown lax. The idiot officer who had owned this thrustible had not kept it at full charge!
Now the slave-warriors' amplified strength and reflexes were set against a merely human will to live and remain free. At a basic level, this was what they lacked, the very capacity taken away to make them Oplytes. Despite their daunting power and speed—and a fearsome reputation serving as a weapon in itself—Henry Martyn, who, as Arran, had fought a hundred imaginary battles in this corridor, did not give up as many another might have. He ducked the wounded creature's treelike arms, luring his healthier pursuer into its half-blind, entangling grasp. He seized upon the straps of the damaged warrior's thrustible. They came away. Provided he had time, he now had a weapon meant for use against the semi-artificial fighters.
The first Oplyte pushed the useless one away and came for him, never raising its thrustible. It must have orders to take him alive, although how Morven knew of his escape so soon ... no time for that. Lifting a weapon much heavier than his own, he centered a crimson splash upon the Oplyte's face. The bolt took its victim in the forehead. It
418 HENRY MARTYN
Staggered, sank to its knees, and collapsed. Before he could take another breath, six more entities exactly like it marched round the comer and stumbled upon him.
"Good evening, Captain! Or ought I address you as young Master Islay, now you have returned home after so long an absence?"
Henry Martyn opened his eyes, not without effort, for they felt as if they were cyanoed shut. He essayed to sit up but did not succeed, his head being only one part of his body throbbing with pain. His right arm was in a sling. He lay upon a divan he did not recognize, within what had been his father's oflSce, a silky coverlet pulled over his legs. Upon a nearby table a carafe sent wisps of steam and the wonderful aroma of caff into the air.
'The former," he croaked, for it was all he could manage at the moment, "which I chose and earned."
Two men stood before him, one tall and gray, uniformed in a paramilitary fashion sometimes affected by Hanoverian aristocrats. Henry Martyn guessed that his black masque portrayed the half-mythical Malcom Ten. The other was slight, attired in stylish and expensive civilian clothing of Jendyne cut. He wore a forthright and unmistakable riche-lieu. As his eyes began to focus, Henry Martyn saw that it was the Hanoverian who had spoken and who now knelt to assist him with the caff, which was heavy with milk and sweet flavoring.
He drank deep. "Who in the Ceo's name are you?"
"In the Ceo's name, indeed." The gray man stood again, set the carafe upon the table, took a step backward, and swept his masque away. "My boy, I am Sedgeley Daimler-Wilkinson, Drector-Advisory and—what is more important at the moment—Executor-General to Leupould IX."
Henry Martyn blinked. "Daimler . . . Wilkinson?"
"You are familiar with the name? Pray permit me to introduce my esteemed colleague and official enemy, Frantisek Demondion-Echeverria, Ambassador Plenipotentiary of the Jendyne Empery-Cirot to the 'Droom upon Hanover, who accompanies me as an observer. Ambassador, the Henry Martyn."
The man doffed his masque, bowed without a word, afterward standing with arms folded across his chest, a scowl
Upon his dark face. Henry Martyn extended a hand, noticing for the first time that he wore other bandages and in places tingled from disinfectant fields. More, he had been deprived of his—rather, the Olpyte's—thrustible, and neither of these two carried one he might take. "Some effort has been spent reviving me. How long—?"
"How long have we been here," Daimler-Wilkinson asked, "or how long have you been unconscious? I gather we arrived almost upon your heels. As to the latter, my people dragged you here—somewhat zealously, I might add by way of apology—about an hour and a half ago, after an exhaustive search of the premises and what I am told was an impressive battle below. Young man, you have cost the Ceo rather a pretty clavis this day. Do you actually recall biting through the carotid artery of one of my Oplytes?"
Henry Martyn shuddered. "No," he lied.
"Be that as it may," Daimler-Wilkinson continued, his voice acquiring a trace of irritability, "you proved difficult to come to grasp with. In the same span, three light divisions of the Ceo's Oplyte legions took a whole world rather more easily from supporters of the man you call the Black Usurper."
This time he did manage to sit up. "What has become of him?"
"We hear he escaped into the forest, looking for a vantage from which to bring our occupying forces under his sway, employing some alien weapon he is rumored to possess. In absence of your brother, who seems to have disappeared as well—I have people searching for them now—this weapon was one of the items I wished urgently to discuss with you."
"And Lia Woodgate?"
Daimler-Wilkinson drew a chair up beside the divan. The ambassador threw himself upon a settee across the room where he sat scowling. "I have," the Hanoverian reflected, "very special instructions regarding her. She was not in her. . . quarters. I sincerely hope to discover her safe and sound."
Henry Martyn nodded, sharing his hope. In any case, many dire reckonings would be paid before this was over, and he did not intend letting some idiot Ceo interfere. "'One of the items.' What else do you wish to discuss with me,
420 HENRY MARTYN
i
Executor-General, my trial and liquidation as a rebel and freebooter?"
"Dear me, no!" The man laughed as if it were the furthest thing from his thoughts, which it was. "Upon the contrary, my boy, it is my earnest desire to enlist, upon the behalf of my Ceo, the sympathi
es and cooperation of a celebrated . . . shall we say *adventurer'?"
Henry Martyn raised an eyebrow. "Sympathies?"
"And cooperation. I intended, wherever and whenever we found you, to offer you, straightaway, the Ceo's amnesty and a full pardon—"
"The same as offered my brother by the Black Usurper," he snorted. "It appears each side, in whatever capital-world dispute this represents, wishes its own pet Islay for some obscure reason. Well let me assure you, Executor-General, I have not the faintest interest which faction finishes uppermost in any political struggle. My experience is that the Monopolity—and your Empery-Cirot, sir—are but two varieties of the same disease." j
"Sedition!" Demondion-Echeverria gasped the first word he had spoken in Henry Martyn's presence. "This creature is nothing more than a common murderer! Upon Homeworld we have ways of dealing with his ilk!"
"Yes, Frantisek, I know you do." Daimler-Wilkinson -turned back to the figure upon the divan. "My friend refers to electronic cerebrectomy. Upon other occasions, he wonders why the Empery-Cirot suffers a chronic death of talent and initiative in these latter days." The Executor-General sighed. "Even you must realize, my boy, that, in the real universe, our imperium-conglomerate represents the least of many greater evils. It is the only proven defense against not only Jendyne predation—you will excuse me, Frantisek—but the threat of anarchy which endangers any civilization." j
"It becomes necessary to point out that I am not your boy," ' an angry Henry Martyn shook his head. "Also, save your apologia for someone upon whom it may prove effective. I am a ship-robber, representative, as it were, of that anarchy you mention. Moreover, knowing something of defenses, proven and otherwise, and being a businessman of sorts, I remain unconvinced of your proposition upon pragmatic grounds of ., contract, profit, and loss." !
Daimler-Wilkinson blinked. "Sir?"
"You argue that you protect civilization from predation. Yet what do I owe a protector," Henry Martyn demanded, "who keeps his part of the bargain—a bargain, I might add, which I had no part in arranging, to which I was never offered a chance to consent or refrain from consenting—with confiscation and conscription, the very predation you claim to protect me from, in short, with nothing but the bargain's betrayal?" From the ambassador a series of half-articulate mutterings was audible. For his own part, the Executor-General opened his mouth to offer one of many conventional answers upon the subject. "Not to mention endless sophistries," Henry Martyn added before he could speak, "designed to redefine that lattermost word away?"
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