by Earl
Stuart Knight, man of two ages, had passed into all the ages.
PERRY arose, staring down at the body. He hardly heard the sobbing of his mother and Leela. He heard only the reverberating words—“I proclaim you Lord of Earth!”
An invisible burden leaped from the still form to his young shoulders. The mantle of leadership. And the baton of war.
For a moment Perry trembled, weak, afraid, appalled. He was a scientist, a student, not a leader and war-chief. He felt like running away, back to his quiet laboratory, where he had dreamed of a new world. But dreams were dreams, unless they were made to come true.
And abruptly, Perry straightened, squared his shoulders.
He stepped before the microphone, calling the Gibraltar station. Only a minute had passed. The heart-stroke had been deadly swift. Stuart answered.
“Father is dead,” Perry said softly. “His heart.”
“I—I thought so,” Stuart’s voice was hollowly quiet, but edged as though he controlled himself by will alone. “I heard a few words. Perry, do you believe I—killed him? Perry, I—”
Hysteria trembled in his tone.
“No. It was inevitable. But you robbed him of a peaceful death.” Appeal crept into Perry’s voice. “Let’s stop all this madness. Come back, Stuart!”
Perry sensed that at that moment his brother was close to remorse for what he had done. Perhaps close to seeing the light.
“No.” The word came back firmly, and Perry knew that the magic spell of Elda still held him.
Lar Tane’s voice sounded.
“Yes, let’s stop this madness. Your father meant well, but now he’s dead. You can have a place in my government, Herr Perry. A high place!”
Perry smiled grimly.
“The Lord of Earth declared war on you, Lar Tane. I’m Lord of Earth now.”
“I see.” Tane’s tone was a shrug. “It will be a game. What do you know of war? But we will have to leave now. Your staff of men here are muttering, eyeing my guard. I go back to Vinna, future capital of Earth!”
PERRY turned away from the radio, face drawn. Yes, what did he know of war? Again, an appalling fear and sense of helplessness struck him.
“Aran Deen, it’s a mistake. I can’t do it. I’m only 23—”
Panic-stricken words.
“Your father was only 23 when he went to Nartica, to end their oligarchy—by threat of war if necessary,” grunted the old seer. “There was one pitched battle, you remember. Several thousands killed. Stirnye won—won the world.”
Stirnye, leader, war-lord, conqueror, at 23!
Perry’s last moment of doubt vanished. Lord of Earth—he was that now. Faintly, he heard the tramp, tramp, tramp of marching feet, and the clarion bugles of war.
The spark had been lighted, to the seething fires of war. Where and when would it stop?
A WEEK later, the funeral of Stirnye was a grand and yet simple affair. The news had flown around Earth, by word of mouth, by the single telegraph line across Eurasia, and by plane. The death of Stirnye, and the war. Two such stupendous events had not happened for twenty-five years.
His body was laid to rest in the crypt north of New York. In the stone vault in which he had survived, a living fossil, for thirty centuries. One by one people filed past the bier, gazing at the face of the man who had changed history. Though stolid by tradition, many of the Tribers hung their heads in genuine sorrow. Women wept.
Most of the native population were there, in the valley on the Hudson, and many from outlying American tribes. A contingent of Narticans stood together, having flown from that distant land. A delegation from Europe had come, and one from eastern Asia, from Africa and South America, wherever powerplant sites had been cleared and Nartican planes were available.
Aran Deen delivered the funeral address.
“The whole world mourns. Stirnye, Lord of the Past, sojourned among us all too briefly. Champion of humanity, he struck free the chains of our Dark Age heritage. He dragged my homeland of Nartica from decadence. He taught the vast Triber world to think in terms of brotherhood. Like a harbinger of glory, he pointed the way to a new and higher civilization.”
Aran Deen’s voice changed.
“But his task is not done. He had only one lifetime. Today, a sinister cloud lies over Earth. In Europe another survivor from the past has arisen, like a Sphinx of evil. His doctrines are blind, selfish, ruthless. We need our champion, Stirnye, as never before. And he is with us, reborn! The body of Stirnye lies dead, but not his spirit. It lives again.
“Here is our new Stirnye, Lord of Earth, even though his name is Perry, not Stuart!”
Perry flinched, before the wild cheers of the crowd. As on the day of the Magna Charta, his tongue stuck. He had never addressed a crowd in his life. He was panic-stricken, horribly frightened. He was ready to run—for a moment.
Then, with the dead face of his father before him, courage oozed back. His voice rang over the clear air.
“People of Earth! My father preached a warless world. I will have the same goal. This is not a war against Lar Tane, but a crusade against the evil he brought with him. It must be crushed relentlessly. After that, I promise you peace and civilization.”
That was all. The simple text struck home. The crowd’s ovation showed their ready acceptance of the term crusade.
“Hall, Perry, new Lord of Earth!”
The cry arose spontaneously. Here and there a voice yelled “Stirnye” instead of “Perry.” But the crowd did not take it up. That was something to be earned, that near-sacred name, bestowed on his father as a contraction of “Stuart Knight,” and since come to be almost a new title engraved in 50th century language.
One by one the various contingents strode up, in simple ceremony, pledging allegiance to Perry as their new First Lord. The European contingent showed its embarrassment.
“We cannot speak for all of Europe. But we speak for all the western and southern tribes. We offer our fealty to you, Lord Perry. We will do all we can to defeat our enemy, Lar Tane.”
Perry felt an uplift of spirit. The whole world was back of him, except for the territory within the sphere of Lar Tane’s personal magnetism. The war would be short, if terrific. Perry made a grim vow. He would smash at Lar Tane with all he had. Blitzkrieg—his father had told of that.
Perry did not think of Stuart. It was not pleasant to think of brother against brother.
PERRY had a war plan within a week, while the news was still penetrating, by the grapevine of gossip, to remote corners of Earth that war had been declared.
His problem was simply stated—to storm through central Europe. Capture Vinna, tribal-seat of Lar Tane’s embryo empire.
But first, capture of the Rhine powerplant. It was Tane’s only source of metal, for arming a growing legion. Gibraltar was in Perry’s hands. All the European tribes below the Rhine and around to the end of the Mediterranean were loyal to him, as they had been to his father. They had helped make up, twenty-five years ago, a fleet that sailed for Nartica.
They helped make up an armada now. From fishing boats to large vessels that had sailed the seven seas in trade. They gathered in the harbor of what had been ancient Spain. Aboard, sailors and recruits tested bows and spears and stone-axes. Standard hunting weapons in the Second Stone Age, all Tribers knew their use from boyhood on.
Perry did not take time to train for maneuvers. The motley horde of a thousand ships straggled out in long lines, sailing for the mouth of the Rhine, like an armada of old Spain.
“We must strike, and strike fast,” Perry told Aran Deen. “Before Lar Tane builds up his defenses. Time works for him and against us.”
The old seer had insisted on being his aide, even in action, despite his years. He nodded.
“You have an analytical mind, Perry. But I’m afraid Lar Tane has, too.”
A sign of it appeared. A plane droned over the armada the second day out. It circled, as though counting the ships. Finally it dipped over Perry’s fl
agship, in the van. Daringly, it skimmed past the mainmast, almost touching a sail. There was nothing to fear from it, for bombs were unknown.
But Perry received a shock. He saw the flash of a coppery head through the pilot windshield. Elda Tane’s head of hair! The undersurfaces of the wing were painted with an imperial emblem of the 30th century—the swastika.
Then the plane raced back toward Vinna. And when they came to the Dover Straits, a line of ships eased over the horizon, blocking the way. Hundreds of them, in a phalanx.
“I thought so,” grunted Aran Deen. “The plane was a scout. Lar Tane is a move ahead. He conscripted those ships from the coast tribes of all the north. If we sail around the British Isles, his armada will meet us there. Well, Perry?”
Perry drew a breath of salt air.
“We attack!” he said.
The first battle signal of the war was given. From crow’s nest to crow’s nest flew the signal, by waving of a banner. Ships tacked into the Straits, toward the line of waiting ships.
Perry’s flagship was still in the lead. Straddling his legs against the roll of the deck, he bent his longbow. In his boyhood, he and Stuart had been deft in the hunt with that weapon. The arrow arced across the water and pierced the sail of the nearest ship.
The first shot of the war!
Perry was struck by the wonder of it. Yesterday a peaceful builder. Today, a warrior. Fate had made a tremendous switch in his life. It seemed unreal.
Suddenly, like a thunderclap, the real battle began. Perry’s ships closed in and arrows flew with a whine. Above the whine sounded the hoarse shouts of men, with the spirit of battle awakened. And above the shouts began to sound the screams and groans of wounded and dying.
Perry was suddenly sick, appalled. He had hoped the defenders wouldn’t actually fight. That this was all some monstrous joke. But obviously the magnetic power of Lar Tane had inspired them in his cause.
The war was on!
CHAPTER XIII
Marching Men
THE unreality faded. This was real, terribly real. Blood was spilling, men were dying. And for what? For a mad moment, Perry wanted to shout and scream for them to stop. For his ships to leave. Was anything worth this brutal orgy of death?
The dead face of his father appeared in his mind. The eyes opened and the lips moved.
“I had to do the same, my son. I had to drench my soul with blood though I had never before seen a human being killed. Bring peace through the paradox of war, or threat of war. You are fighting a real war. And you are fighting evil. It is a good fight.”
An arrow went by his ear with a deadly whing, to bury itself in the throat of a man at the back. In a deadly rage, Perry notched an arrow and let fly at the enemy ship, no more than a hundred feet off. Again and again he shot. He saw a man fall, on that other ship, with his arrow in his chest.
This was war! At last he realized it.
From that moment on, Perry dropped entirely his hesitancy, vacillation. The old Perry of the quiet laboratory was gone, at least temporarily. He took up the role of warlord wholeheartedly. Yes, it was a good fight.
Aran Deen pulled him back from the exposed deck, where the archers sent out and received death.
“Fool,” the old scholar muttered. “You’re needed to direct and lead, not take an arrow in your vitals. Battles are won by strategy, not just brute force.”
Perry grinned.
“You’re right, old man. I have much to learn about warfare.”
For an hour Perry watched, and thought. With a pair of binoculars—one of the first things his father had reinvented—he surveyed the far-flung sea battle. It was a disorganized melee. There had been no large-scale war, whether on sea or land, for centuries. Both sides were experimenting, learning.
Perry suddenly gave orders to be wagged from his crow’s nest. His ships began to tack back and forth, across the phalanx of defenders, raking them with arrow-fire. His ships, a moving target, had the advantage.
But the enemy quickly took up the maneuver, weaving back and forth, destroying the strategy.
In quick succession, Perry thought of ramming, then grappling and boarding. His front line of ships, under orders, rammed a dozen of the enemy amidships, overturning them. His second line caught and grappled others, and boarding parties leaped across, in hand-to-hand battle.
But almost instantly, the enemy reciprocated. The battle area became a confusion of rammed, sinking ships, and ships lashed together with blood spilling over decks as spears and stone-axes were wielded. Trading ship for ship, man for man, Perry could not win. Lar Tane had gathered as many as he.
Suddenly a line of enemy ships leaped out, circled the battle area, and came at Perry’s side, to drive his fleet to shore. Perry divined the strategy in time to send counter-attack. But some guiding intelligence had sent that attack. Was it Lar Tane himself?
THEN Perry caught the glint of coppery hair, on the deck of a large enemy ship back of their lines. Elda Tane! Perry steadied his glasses. No one beside her. Evidently Stuart and Lar Tane were back in Vinna. Did they think the war so unimportant that they left it in a woman’s hands?
“You tremble, Perry,” observed Aran Deen. When he was told, he cackled, “So, the green-eyed witch is commander? Do not underestimate her, woman though she is. The ancient records tell a strange story. Women had taken up the profession of war, in the 30th century, alongside men. Elda Tane was commander of her father’s airfleets, in that dim past, winning for him his empire!”
“What?” gasped Perry. “I don’t believe it. It’s a fable. You can’t trust some of those old records.” He laughed wildly. “She thinks it’s a game. I’ll show her!”
Night fell, bringing armistice.
At dawn, Perry was tense. He had his front line of ships, the biggest and heaviest, ready for a daring leap ahead. A spearhead to plow and grind its way through the central part of the phalanx.
“I’ll crack that line,” he said grimly. He gave the orders. “Full speed ahead. Ram through. Don’t stop for anything!”
The wind was favorable. Sails bellying, the spearhead sprang forward, in a great V. But even as they neared, Perry groaned. A waiting V from the enemy came from the side. The two spearheads met, with a crash and grind that resounded horribly over the still waters. Broken apart, Perry’s V lost all its momentum. The enemy phalanx was unbroken.
Elda Tane had anticipated the move.
And following came a move of her own—a startling one.
Five planes droned down from the sky, wings labeled with the swastika. Lar Tane had obviously conscripted them—seized them—at the outbreak of the war, from the traffic that weaved between Nartica and the Rhine power-plant. Perry wondered what they could mean, heading down over his fleet. He soon found out.
Bundles of burning rags dropped from the planes, plopping with showers of sparks on ships’ decks. Fierce flames sprang over several of the wooden vessels. Perry groaned as a dozen burned to the water’s edge.
One plane swooped down over his ship. Perry cursed as he caught the glint of coppery hair again. During the night Elda had transferred from ship to plane, to lead this attack from the sky. She flew so close that he could see the mocking smile on her face, as a flame-clothed bundle of rags caught in the sails. They burst into eager flame. Fire spread swiftly, whipped to a fury by a breeze.
Perry bitterly stepped in the lifeboat that took him to another ship. A few poor devils had been burned by fiery droppings from the sails. The planes roared away, for more of their incendiary cargo. Perry thought longingly of past-age machine-guns and anti-aircraft, to hammer the insolent, low-flying planes from the sky. There were no guns in the 50th century. It was a queer war.
When he stepped on the deck of another ship, he sent orders around to keep all decks swabbed with water. No more ships would burn. But the airraid had done incalculable harm—to morale.
As though fully aware of it, the enemy leaped to attack.
The phalanx swept forward,
among his disorganized formation. Perry’s men could not fight and swab decks both. When the planes reappeared, Within an hour, burning rags dropped and again ships burned.
The final blow came, unawares, through the pall of smoke that swirled over the waters. A fleet of ships appeared around the headland of the British Isle. Attack from the rear! Elda Tane had sent them around.
Perry’s fleet, crushed in the middle, driven inshore among shoals, threatened to become completely haphazard prey.
“Perry, there is only one thing to do—” Aran Deen was shaking his head sadly.
“I know—”
Perry called retreat.
Ingloriously, what was left of his grand armada fled from the Dover Straits for open water. Perry swallowed the bitter pill of defeat. He had lost 200 ships.
The first engagement of the war was history.
“I TOLD you, Perry,” piped Aran Deen, on the way back to harbor. “She is a green-eyed Amazon.”
Perry rebelled at the thought. A woman as beautiful as she, hurling the thunderbolts of war. Amazon—and Delilah. Perry pitied his brother, caught in the web of that dual nature.
Perry shook himself. He must not underestimate her any longer. There was intelligence behind her beauty—incredible daring. She must know many tricks of war, from her warlike time.
“What’s next, Perry?” Aran Deen asked. “Capture of the Rhine plant by sea is out of the question. She can hold us off at the Straits indefinitely.”
But Perry was suddenly sick. Excitement over, he remembered now the men falling with arrows in their hearts, men drowning, men burning, men crushed as masts fell. The reek of blood, the horrible cries, the rustle of the wings of Death. His soul shrieked against the brutal episode, his first baptism of blood.
And how many more would follow? How long would the Frankenstein monster of war stalk the world?
A plane drummed down from the clouds, circling over the limping armada. It singled out the flagship ensign and darted low. Coppery flash again! Another bomb of fire? Perry eased as only a stone bounced to the deck, wrapped in white rag-paper. The plane droned away.