The Chalice of Death

by Robert Silverberg

  “Name and planet of origin?”

  “Hallam Navarre. Planet of origin, Earth.”

  The customs man glared impatiently at Navarre’s shaven scalp and snapped, “You know what I mean. What planet are you from?”

  “Jorus,” Navarre said.

  “Purpose of visiting Kariad?”

  “I’m a special emissary from Overlord Joroiran VII; intent peaceful, mission confidential.”

  “Are you the Earthman to the Court?”

  Navarre nodded.

  “And this man?”

  “Domrik Carso,” the half-breed growled. “Planet of origin, Jorus.”

  The official indicated Carso’s stubbly scalp. “I wish you Earthmen would show some consistency. One says he’s from Earth, the other—or are you not an Earthman, but merely prematurely bald?”

  “I’m of Earth descent,” Carso said stolidly. “But I’m from Jorus, and you can put it down. I’m Navarre’s traveling companion.”

  The customs officer riffled perfunctorily through their papers a moment, then handed them back. “Very well. You may both pass.”

  Navarre and Carso moved off the field and into the spaceport itself.

  “I could use a beer,” Carso said.

  “I guess you’ve never been on Kariad, then. They must brew their beer from sewer-flushings here.”

  “I’ll drink sewer-flushings when I must,” Carso said. He pointed to a glowing tricolored sign. “There’s a bar. Shall we go in?”

  As Navarre had expected, the beer was vile. He stared unhappily at the mug of green, brackish liquid, stirring it with a quiver of his wrist and watching the oily patterns forming and re-forming on its surface.

  Across the table, Carso was showing no such qualms. The half-breed tilted the bottle into his mug, raised the big mug to his lips, drank. Navarre shuddered.

  Grinning, Carso crashed the mug down and wiped his beard clean.

  “It’s not the best I’ve ever had,” he commented finally. “But it’ll do in a pinch.” Shrugging cheerfully, he filled his mug a second time.

  Very quietly, Navarre said, “Do you see those men sitting at the far table?”

  Carso squinted and looked at them without seeming to do so. “Aye. They were on board the ship with us.”

  “Exactly.”

  “But so were at least five of the other people in this bar! Surely you don’t think—”

  “I don’t intend to take any chances,” Navarre said flatly. “Finish your drink. I want to make a tour of the spaceport.”

  “Well enough, if you say so.” Carso drained the drink and left one of Overlord Joroiran’s bills on the table to pay for it. Casually, the pair left the bar.

  Their first stop was a tape shop. There, Navarre made a great business over ordering a symphony.

  The effusive, apologetic proprietor did his best. “The Anvils of Juno? I don’t think I have that number in stock. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of it. Could it be The Hammer of Drolon you seek?”

  “I’m fairly sure it was the Juno,” said Navarre, who had invented the work a moment before. “But perhaps I’m wrong. Is there any place here I can listen to the Drolon?”

  “Surely; we have a booth back here where you can experience full audiovisual effect. If you’d step this way, please …”

  They spent fifteen minutes sampling the tape, Carso with a prevailing expression of utter boredom, Navarre with a scowl for the work’s total insipidity. The symphony was banal and obvious—a typical Kariadi hack product, churned out by some weary tone-artist to meet the popular demand. At the end of the first fifteen-minute movement Navarre snapped off the playback and rose.

  The proprietor came bustling up to the booth. “Well?”

  “Sorry,” Navarre said. “This isn’t the one I want.”

  Gathering his cloak about him, he swept out of the shop, followed by Carso. As they re-entered the main concourse of the terminal arcade, Navarre saw two figures glide swiftly into the shadows—but not swiftly enough.

  “I do believe you’re right,” Carso muttered. “We’re being followed.”

  “Kausirn’s men, no doubt. The Lyrellan must be curious to see which way we’re heading. Or possibly he’s ordered my assassination, now that I’m away from the Court. But let’s give it one more test before we take steps.”

  “No more music!” Carso said hastily.

  “No. The next stop will be a more practical one.” Navarre led the way down the arcade until they reached a shop whose front display said simply, Weapons. They went in.

  The proprietor here was of a different stamp than the man in the music shop; he was a rangy Kariadi, his light blue skin glowing in color-harmony with the electroluminescents in the shop’s walls.

  “Can I help you?”

  “Possibly you can,” Navarre said. He swept back his hood, revealing his Earthman’s scalp. “We’re from Jorus. There are assassins on our trail, and we want to shake them. Have you a back exit?”

  “Over there,” the armorer said. “Are you armed?”

  “We are, but we could do with some spare charges. Say, five apiece.” Navarre placed a bill on the counter and slid the wrapped packages into his tunic pocket.

  “Are those the men?” the proprietor asked.

  Two shadowy figures were visible through the one-way glass of the window. They peered in uneasily.

  “I think they’re coming in here,” Navarre said.

  “All right. You two go our the back way; I’ll chat with them for a while.”

  Navarre flashed the man an appreciative smile and he and Carso slipped through the indicated door, just as their pursuers entered the weapons shop.

  “Double around the arcade and wait at the end of the corridor, eh?” Carso suggested.

  “Right. We’ll catch them as they come out.”

  Some hasty running brought them to a strategic position. “Keep your eyes open,” Navarre said. “That shopkeeper may have told them where we are.”

  “I doubt it. He looked honest.”

  “You never can tell,” Navarre said. “Hush, now!”

  The door of the gun shop was opening.

  The followers emerged, edging out into the corridor again, squeezing themselves against the wall and peering in all directions. They looked acutely uncomfortable now that they had lost sight of their quarry.

  Navarre drew his blaster and hefted it thoughtfully. After a moment’s pause he shouted, “Stand still and raise your hands,” and squirted a bolt of energy almost at their feet.

  One of the pair yelled in fear, but the other, responding instantly, drew and fired. His bolt, deliberately aimed high, brought down a section of the arcade roofing; the drifting dust and plaster obscured vision.

  “They’re getting away!” Carso snapped. “Let’s go after them fast!”

  They leaped from hiding and raced through the rubble; dimly they could see the retreating pair heading for the main waiting room. Navarre cursed; if they got in there, there would be no chance of bringing them down.

  As he ran, he leveled his blaster and emitted a single short burst. One of the two toppled and fell; the other continued running, and vanished abruptly into the crowded waiting room.

  “I’ll go in after him,” Navarre said. “You look at the dead one and see if there’s any sort of identification on him.”

  Navarre pushed his way through the photon-beam and into the spaceport’s crowded waiting room. He caught sight of his man up ahead, jostling desperately toward the cab-stand. Navarre holstered his blaster; he would never be able to use it in here.

  “Stop that man!” he roared. “Stop him!”

  Perhaps it was the authority in his tone, perhaps it was his baldness, but to his surprise a foot stretched out and sent the fleeing spy sprawling. Navarre reached him in an instant, and knocked the useless blaster from his hand. He tugged the quivering man to his feet.

  “All right, who are you?”

  He punctuated the question with
a slap. The man sputtered and turned his face away without replying, and Navarre hit him again.

  This time the man cursed and tried fruitlessly to break away.

  “Did Kausirn send you?” Navarre demanded, gripping him tightly.

  “I don’t know anything. Leave me alone.”

  “You’d better start knowing,” Navarre said. He drew his blaster with his free hand. “I’ll give you five to tell me why you were following us, and if you don’t speak up I’ll burn you right here. One … two …”

  On the count of three Navarre suddenly felt hands go round his waist, other hands grabbing at his wrist to immobilize the blaster. He was pulled away from his prisoner and the blaster wrenched from his hand.

  “Let go of him, Earthman,” a rough voice said. “What’s going on here, anyway?”

  “This man’s an assassin,” Navarre said. “He and a companion were sent here to kill me. Luckily my friend and I detected the plot, and—”

  “That’s enough,” the burly Kariadi said. “You’d all better come with me.”

  Navarre turned and saw several other officers approaching. One bore the blaster-charred body of the dead assassin; the other two pinioned the figure of the furiously struggling Domrik Carso.

  “Come along, now,” the Kariadi said.

  Chapter Four

  “A good beginning to our quest,” Carso said bitterly. “A noble start!”

  “Quiet,” Navarre told him. “I think someone’s coming to see us.”

  They were in a dungeon somewhere in the heart of Kariad City, having been taken there from the spaceport. The surviving assassin had been placed in another cell.

  But someone was coming. The door of the cell was opening, and a yellow beam of light began to crawl diagonally across the concrete floor.

  A slim figure entered the cell. Light glinted off a bald skull; the visitor was an Earthman, then.

  “Hello. Which of you is Navarre?”

  “I am.”

  “I’m Helna Winstin, Earthman to the Court of Lord Marhaill, Oligocrat of Kariad. Sorry our men had to throw you down here in this cell, but they weren’t in any position to take chances.”

  “We understand,” Navarre said. He was still staring without believing. “No one told me that on Kariad the Earthman to the Court was a woman.”

  Helna Winstin smiled. “The appointment was but recent. My father held the post until last month.”

  “And you succeeded him?”

  “After a brief struggle. Milord was much taken by a Lyrellan who had served as Astronomer Royal, but I’m happy to say he did not choose to break the tradition of an Earthman adviser.”

  Navarre stared at the slim female Earthman with sharp respect. Evidently there had been a fierce battle for power—a battle in which she had bested a Lyrellan. That was more than I managed to do, he thought.

  “Come,” she said. “The order for your release has been signed, and I find cells unpleasant. Shall we go to my rooms?”

  “I don’t see why not,” Navarre replied. He glanced at Carso, who looked utterly thunderstruck. “Come along, Domrik.”

  They were led through the corridor to a liftshaft and upward; it was evident to Navarre now that the dungeon had been in the depths of the royal palace itself.

  Helna Winstin’s rooms were warm and inviting looking; the decor was brighter than Navarre was accustomed to, but beneath the apartment’s obvious femininity lay a core of surprising toughness that seemed repeated in the girl herself.

  “Now then,” she said, making herself comfortable and motioning for the men to do the same. “What have you two done that brings you to Kariad with a pair of assassins on your trail?”

  “Has the man confessed?”

  “He—ah—revealed all,” Helna Winstin said. “He told us he was sent here by one Kausim, a Lyrellan attached to the Joran court, with orders to make away with you, specifically, and your companion, too, if possible.”

  Navarre nodded. “I suspected as much. Can I see the man?”

  “Unfortunately, he died under interrogation. The job was clumsily handled.”

  She’s tough, all right, Navarre thought appreciatively. She wore her head shaved, though it was not strictly required of female Earthmen; she wore a man’s costume and did a man’s job, and only the rise of her bosom and the slightness of her figure indicated her sex.

  She leaned forward. “Now, may I ask what brings the Earthman of Joroiran’s court here to Kariad?”

  “We travel on a mission from Joroiran,” Navarre said. “We seek the Chalice of life for him.”

  A tapering eyebrow rose. “How interesting! Joroiran has become a student of mythology, then! Or does the Chalice really exist?”

  “It might,” Navarre said. “But our target is only indirectly the Chalice.” In terse, clipped sentences he told her the whole story of their search for Earth. A strange look crossed her face when he finished.

  “Lord Marhaill is all too likely to side with your friend Kausirn in this matter,” she said. “And if I help you it may mean the loss of my post here—if not all our lives. But the prize is great—Earth herself!”

  “You’ll help us, then?”

  She smiled slowly. “Of course.”

  The main library of Kariad City was a building fifty stories high and as many more deep below the ground, and still it could not begin to store the accumulated outpourings of a hundred thousand years of civilization on uncountable worlds.

  “The open files go back only about five hundred years,” Helna said, as she and Navarre entered the vast doorway, followed by Carso. “Everything else is stored away somewhere, and hardly anyone but antiquarians ever bothers with it.”

  Navarre frowned. “We may have some trouble finding what we want, then.”

  An efficient-looking Dergonian met them at the door. “Good day, Sir Earthman,” he said to Helna. Catching sight of Navarre and Carso, he added, “And to you as well.”

  “We seek the main index,” Helna said.

  “Through that archway,” said the librarian. “May I help you find your information?”

  “We can manage by ourselves, thanks,” Navarre said.

  The main index occupied one enormous room from floor to ceiling. Navarre blinked dizzily at the immensity of it. He watched as Helna coolly walked to a screen mounted on a table in the center of the index room and punched out the letters E-A-R-T-H. She twisted a dial and the screen lit.

  A card appeared in the center of the screen. Navarre squinted to read its fine print:

  EARTH: legendary planet of Sol system(?)

  considered in myth as home of mankind

  See: D80009.1643, Smednal, Creation Myths of the Galaxy

  D80009.1644, Snodgras, Legends of the First Empire.

  Helna looked up doubtfully. “Shall I try the next card? Should I order these books?”

  “I don’t think there’s any point to it,” said Navarre. “These works look fairly recent; they won’t tell us anything we don’t know. We’ll have to dig a little deeper. How do we get to the closed shelves?”

  “I’ll have to pull rank, I guess.”

  “Let’s go, then. The real location of Earth is somewhere in these libraries, I’m sure; you just can’t lose a world completely. If we go back far enough we’re sure to find out where Earth was.”

  “Unless such information was carefully deleted when Earth fell,” Carso pointed out.

  Navarre shook his head. “Impossible. The library system is too vast, too decentralized. There’s bound to have been a slip-up somewhere—and we can find it!”

  “I hope so,” the half-breed said moodily, as they left the index room and headed for the library’s administration office to ask for a closed-file permit.

  Track fifty-seven of the closed shelves was as cold and as desolate as a sunless planet, Navarre thought bleakly, as he and his companions stepped out of the dropshaft.

  A Genobonian serpent-man came slithering toward them, and the chittering echo o
f his body sliding across the dark floor went shivering down the long dust-laden aisles. At the sight of the reptile, Carso reached for his blaster; Genobonians entered this system infrequently, and they were fearsome sights to anyone not prepared for them.

  “What’s this worm coming from the books?” Carso asked loudly. His voice rang through the corridors.

  “Peace, friends. I am but an old and desiccated librarian left to molder in these forgotten stacks.” The Genobonian chuckled. “A bookworm in truth, Earthman. But you are the first to visit here in a year or more; what do you seek?”

  “Books about Earth,” Navarre said. “Is there a catalog down here?”

  “There is, but it shan’t be needed. I’ll show you what we have, if you’ll be careful with it.”

  The serpent slithered away, leaving a foot-wide track in the dust on the floor. Hesitantly, the three followed. He led them down to the end of a corridor, through a passageway dank-smelling with the odor of dying books, and into an even mustier alcove.

  “Here we are,” the dry voice croaked. The Genobonian extended a skinny arm and yanked a book from a shelf. It was an actual book, not a tape.

  “Handle it with care, friends. The budget does not allow for taping it, so we must preserve the original—until the day comes when this track must be cleaned. The library peels away its oldest layer like an onion shedding its skin; when the weight of new words is too great—whisht! and track fifty-seven vanishes into the outworlds.”

  “And you with it?”

  “No,” said the serpent sadly. “I stay here, and endeavor to learn my way around the new volumes that descend from above. The time of changing is always melancholy.”

  “Enough talk,” Navarre said brusquely, when it seemed the old serpent would maunder on endlessly. “Let’s look at this book.”

  It was a history of the galaxy, arranged alphabetically by subject matter. Navarre stared at the title page and felt a strange chill when he saw that the book was more than thirteen thousand years old.

  Thirteen thousand years. And yet Earth had fallen millennia before the time of the printing of this book.

  Navarre frowned. “This is only the volume from Fenelon to Fenris,” he said. “Where’s Earth?”