The Chalice of Death

by Robert Silverberg

“Melwod Finst. I’m but newly returned from Jorus.”

  After a pause the Oligocrat’s emblem dissolved, and Helna Winstin’s head and shoulders took their place on the screen. She looked outward at Navarre cautiously; her face seemed paler than ever, the cheekbones more pronounced. She had shaved her scalp not long before, he noticed.

  “Milady, I am Melwod Finst of Kariad West. I crave a private audience with you at once.”

  “You’ll have to make regular application, Freeholder Finst. I’m very busy just now. You—”

  Her eyes went wide as the supposed Finst tugged at his frontmost lock of hair, yanking it away from his scalp sufficiently far enough to show where the blue skin color ended and where the pale white began. He replaced the lock, pressing it down to rebind it to his scalp, and grinned. The grin was unmistakable.

  “I have serious matters to discuss with you, Milady,” Navarre said. “My seedling farm is in serious danger. The crop is threatened by hostile forces. This concerns you, I believe.”

  She nodded. “I believe it does. Let us arrange an immediate meeting, Melwod Finst.”

  They met at the Two Suns, a refreshment place not too far from the spaceport. Navarre, who was unfamiliar with Kariad, was not anxious to travel any great distance to meet Helna; since he was posing as an ostensible Kariadi, an undue lack of familiarity on his part with his native world might seem suspicious.

  He arrived at the place long before she did. They had arranged that he was to find her, not she him; not seeing her at any of the tables, he took a seat at the bar.

  “Rum,” he said. He knew better than to order the vile Kariadi beer.

  He sat alone, nursing his drink, grunting noncommitally any time a local barfly attempted to engage him in conversation. Thirty minutes and three rums later, Helna arrived. She paused just inside the door of the place, standing regally erect as she looked around for him.

  Navarre slipped away from the bar and went up to her.

  “Milady?”

  She glanced inquisitively at him.

  “I am Melwod Finst,” he told her gravely. “Newly come from Jorus.”

  He led her to a table in the back, drew a coin from his pocket, and purchased thirty minutes of privacy. The dull blue of the force-screen sprang up around them. During the next half hour they could carouse undisturbed, or make love, or plot the destruction of the galaxy.

  Helna said, “Why the disguise? Where have you been? What—”

  “One question at a time, Helna. The disguise I needed in order to get off Jorus. My old rival Kausirn has laid me under sentence of death.”

  “How can he?”

  “Because he knows our plan. Kausirn’s spies are more ingenious than we think. I heard him tell the Overlord everything—where we were, the secret of the Chalice, our eventual hope of rebuilding the civilization of Earth.”

  “You denied it, naturally.”

  “I said it was madness. But he had some sort of documentary evidence he gave the Overlord, and Joroiran was immediately convinced. Just after I had won him over, too.” Navarre scowled. “I managed to escape and flee here in this guise, but we’ll have to block them before they send a fleet out to eradicate the settlements on Earth and Procyon. Where’s Carso?”

  Helna shrugged. “He’s taken cheap lodgings somewhere in the heart of the city while he waits for word from you that his banishment is revoked. I don’t see much of him these days.”

  “Small chance he’ll get unbanished now,” Navarre said.

  “Let’s find him. The three of us will have to decide what’s to be done.”

  He rose. Helna caught him by one wrist and gently tugged him back into his seat.

  “Is the emergency that pressing?” she asked.

  “Well …”

  “We’ve got twenty minutes more of privacy paid for—should we waste it? I haven’t seen you for a month, Hallam.”

  “I guess twenty minutes won’t matter much,” he said, grinning.

  They found Carso later that day sitting in a bar in downtown Kariad City, clutching a mug of Kariadi beer in his hand. The half-breed looked soiled and puffy-faced; his scalp was dark with several days’ growth of hair, his bushy beard untrimmed and unkempt.

  He looked up in sudden alarm as Helna’s hand brushed lightly along his shoulder. “Hello,” he grunted. Then, seeing Navarre, he added, “Who’s your friend?”

  “His name is Melwod Finst. I thought you’d be interested in meeting him.”

  Carso extended a grimy band. “Pleased.”

  Navarre stared unhappily at his erstwhile comrade. Filthy, drunken, ragged-looking, there was little of the Earthman left about Carso. True enough, Carso was a half-breed, his mother an Earthwoman—but now he seemed to have brought to the fore the worst characteristics of his nameless, drunken Joran father. He was a sad sight.

  Navarre slipped in beside the half-breed and gestured at the bowl of foul Kariadi beer. “I’ve never understood how you could drink that stuff, Domrik.”

  Carso wheeled heavily in his seat to look at Navarre. “I didn’t know we were on first-name terms, friend. But—wait! Speak again!”

  “You’re a bleary-eyed sot of a half-breed,” Navarre said in his natural voice.

  Carso frowned. “That voice—your face—you remind me of someone. But he was not of Kariad.”

  “Nor am I,” said Navarre. “Blue skin’s a trapping easily acquired. As is a Kariadi wig.”

  Carso started to chuckle, bending low over the beer. At length he said, “You devil, you fooled me!”

  “And many another. There’s a price on my head back on Jorus.”

  “Eh?” Carso was abruptly sober; the merriment drained from his coarse-featured face. “What’s that you say? Are you out of favor with the Overlord? I was counting on you to have that foolish sentence of banishment revoked and—”

  “Kausirn knows our plans. I barely got off Jorus alive; even Joroiran is against me. He ordered Kausirn to send a fleet to destroy the settlement on Earth.”

  Carso bowed his head. “Does he know where Earth is? After all, it wasn’t easy for us to find it in the first place.”

  “I don’t know,” Navarre said. He glanced at Helna. “We’ll have to find the old librarian who gave us the lead. Keep him from helping anyone else.”

  Carso said, “That’s useless. If Kausirn knows about the Chalice and its contents, he also knows where the crypt was located and how to get there. At this moment the Jorus fleets are probably blasting our settlements. Here. Have a drink. It was a fine planet while it lasted, wasn’t it?”

  “No Joran spacefleet has left the Cluster in the last month,” Helna said quietly.

  Navarre looked up. “How do you know?”

  “Oligocrat Marhaill has reason to suspect the doings on Jorus. He keeps careful watch over the Joran military installations, and whenever a Joran battlefleet departs on maneuvers we are apprised of it. This information is routed through me on its way to Marhaill. And I tell you that the Joran fleet has been absolutely quiet all this past month.”

  Reddening, Navarre asked, “How long has this sort of observation been going on?”

  “Four years, at least.”

  Navarre slammed the flat of his hand against the stained table top. “Four years! That means you penetrated my alleged defensive network with ease … and all the time I was trying to set up a spy-system on Kariad, and failing!” He eyed the girl with new respect. “How did you do it?”

  She smiled. “Secret, Navarre, secret! Let’s maintain the pretense—I’m Earthman to Marhaill’s Court, you to Joroiran’s. It wouldn’t be ethical for me to speak of such matters to you.”

  “Well enough. But if the fleet’s not left yet, that means one of two things—either they’re about to leave, or else they don’t know where to go!”

  “I lean toward the latter,” said Carso. “Earth’s a misty place. I expect they’re desperately combing the old legends now for some hint.”

  “If we were to ob
tain three Kariadi battlecruisers, and ambush the Joran fleet as it came down on Earth …” Helna mused aloud.

  “Could we?” Navarre asked.

  “You’re in Kariadi garb. What if I obtained an appointment in our space navy for you, Navarre? And then ordered you out—with a secondary fleet on—ah—maneuvers? Say, to the vicinity of Earth?”

  “And then I tell my crewmen that war has been declared between Jorus and Kariad, and set them to destroying the unsuspecting Joran fleet!” Navarre went on.

  “Not destroying,” said Helna. “Capturing! We make sure your battle wagons are equipped with tractor-beams—and that way we add the Joran ships to our growing Terran navy.”

  Carso gave his approval with a quick nod. “It’s the only way to save Earth. If you can handle the appointments, Helna.”

  “Marhaill is a busy man. I can take care of him. Why, he was so delighted to see me return after a year’s time that he didn’t even ask me where I had been!”

  Navarre frowned. “One problem. Suppose Kausirn doesn’t know where Earth is? What if no Joran fleet shows up? I can’t keep your Kariadi on maneuvers forever out there, waiting for the enemy.”

  “Suppose,” said Helna, “we make sure Kausirn knows. Suppose we tell him.”

  Carso gasped. “I may have been drinking, but I can’t be that drunk. Did you say you’d tell Kausirn where our settlements are?”

  “I did. It’ll take the suspense out of the pressure of his threat. And it’ll add a Joran fleet to a Kariadi one to form a nucleus of the new Terran navy—if the space battle comes out properly.”

  “And what if Kausirn sends the entire Joran armada out against your puny three ships? What then?”

  “He won’t,” said Navarre. “It wouldn’t be a logical thing to do. Earth is known to be defenseless. Kausirn wouldn’t needlessly leave Jorus unguarded by sending out any more ships than he needs for the job.”

  “I still don’t like the idea,” Carso insisted, peering moodily at the oily surface of his beer. “I don’t like the idea at all.”

  Chapter Ten

  Four days later Navarre, registered as Melwod Finst at the Hotel of the Red Sun, received an engraved summons to the Oligocrat’s court, borne by a haughty Kariadi messenger in red wig and costly livery.

  Navarre accepted the envelope and absently handed the courier a tip; insulted, the messenger drew back, sniffed at Navarre, and bowed stiffly. He left, looking deeply wounded.

  Grinning, the Earthman opened the summons. It said:

  By These Presents Be It Known

  That Marhaill, Oligocrat of Kariad, does on behalf of himself and his fellow members of the Governing Council invite

  MELWOD FINST

  of Kariad City to Court on the seventh instant of the current month.

  The said Finst is therein to be installed in the Admiralty of the Navy of Kariad, by grace of private petition received and honored.

  The invitation was signed only with the Oligocrat’s monogram, the scrollwork M within the diamond. But to the right of that, in light pencil, were the initials H. W., scrawled in Helna’s hand.

  Navarre mounted the document on the mantel of his hotel room and mockingly bowed before it. “All hail, Admiral Finst! Melwod Finst of the Kariadi navy!”

  Court was crowded the following day when Navarre, in a rented court costume, appeared to claim his Admiralty. The long throne room was lined on both sides with courtiers, members of the government, curious onlookers who had wangled admission, and those about to be honored.

  Marhaill, Oligocrat of Kariad, sat enthroned at the far end of the hall, sprawled awkwardly with his long legs jutting in different directions. At his right sat Helna, befitting her rank as Earthman to the Court and chief adviser of Marhaill. On lesser thrones to both sides sat the eight members of the Governing Council, looking gloomy, dispirited, and bored. Their functions had atrophied; Kariad, once an authentic oligarchy, had retained the forms but not the manner of the ancient government. The Governing Council’s only value was decorative.

  It was an imposing tableau.

  Navarre stood impatiently at attention for fifteen minutes, sweating under his court costume—and praying fervently that his dye would not run—until the swelling sound of an electronic trumpet called the assemblage to order.

  Marhaill rose and made a brief but highly-charged speech, welcoming all and sundry to court. Then Helna surreptitiously slipped a scroll into his hands, and he began to read, in a deep, magnificently resonant voice which Navarre suspected was his own, and not simply an artificially, magnified tone produced by a microamplifier embedded in his larynx.

  Navarre counted. His name was the sixty-third to be called; preceding him came three other new admirals, four generals, seven ministers plenipotentiary, and assorted knights of the realm. Evidently Marhaill believed in maintaining a goodly number of flashily-titled noble gentry on Kariad. It was a method for insuring loyalty and service, thought Navarre.

  Finally:

  “Melwod Finst. For meritorious service to the realm of Kariad, for abiding and long-standing loyalty to our throne, for generous and warm-hearted qualities of person, and for skill in the arts of space. We show our deep gratitude by bestowing upon him the rank of Admiral in our space navy, with command of three vessels of war.”

  Navarre had been carefully coached in the procedure by Helna. When Marhaill concluded the citation, Navarre clicked his heels briskly, stepped out of the audience, and advanced toward the throne, head back, shoulders high.

  He gave a crisp military salute. “Thanks to Your Grace,” he said, kneeling.

  Marhaill leaned forward and draped a red-and-yellow sash over Navarre’s shoulders.

  “Rise, Admiral Melwod Finst.”

  Rising, Navarre’s eyes met those of Marhaill’s. The Oligocrat’s eyes were deep, searching—but were they, he wondered, searching enough to discover that the new admiral was a shaven Earthman, renegade from Jorus? It didn’t seem that way.

  The shadow of a smile flickered across Navarre’s face as he made the expected genuflection and backed away from the Oligocrat’s throne. It was a strange destiny for an Earthman: an admiral of Kariad. But Navarre had long since learned to take the strange in stride.

  He knelt again before Helna, thus showing the gratitude due his sponsor, and melted back into the crowd, standing now in the colorfully-sashed line of those who had been honored. Marhaill called the next name. Navarre adjusted his admiral’s sash proudly, and, standing erect, watched the remainder of the ceremony with deep and abiding interest.

  The military spaceport closest to Kariad City was the home base of the Fifth Navy, and it was to this group that Helna had had Navarre assigned.

  He reported early the following morning, introducing himself rather bluntly to the commanding officer of the base and requesting his ships. He was eyed somewhat askance; evidently such prompt action was not expected of a political appointee in the history of the Kariadi navy. In any event, a sullen-looking enlisted man drove Navarre out to the spaceport itself, where three massive first-class battle cruisers stood gleaming in the bright morning rays of Secundus, the yellow sun.

  Navarre nearly whistled in surprise; he hadn’t expected ships of this order of tonnage. He watched, delighted, as Kariadi spacemen swarmed over the three ships, getting them into shape for the forthcoming battle maneuvers. They weren’t expecting an actual battle, but from their enthusiasm and vigor Navarre knew they would be grateful for the unexpected opportunity of experiencing actual combat.

  “Very nice,” he commented, whenever any of the base officers asked his opinion of his command ships. “Excellent ships. Excellent.”

  He met his staff of under-officers, none of whom seemed particularly impressed by their new commander. He shook hands coldly, rather flabbily. Since they all knew he was a political appointee, he was determined to act the part fully.

  At noon he ate in the officers’ supply room. He was in the midst of discussing his wholly ficti
tious background of tactical skills when a frightened young orderly came bursting in.

  “What’s the meaning of this disturbance?” Navarre demanded in a gruff voice.

  “Are you Admiral Finst? Urgent message for Admiral Finst, sir. Came in over top-priority wires from the palace just now.”

  “Hand it over, boy.”

  “Finst” took the sealed message, slid it open, read it. It said, Come back to palace at once. Treachery. Serious danger threatens. Helna.

  “You look pale, Admiral,” remarked an officer nearby.

  “I’ve been summoned back to the palace,” Navarre said brusquely. “Urgent conference. Looks very serious, I’m afraid. They need me in a hurry.”

  Suddenly all eyes swung toward the political appointee, who had in a moment revealed that he was actually a person of some importance.

  “What is it, Finst? Has war been declared?”

  “Sorry, I’m not at liberty to say anything now. Would you have a jet brought down for me? I must get to the palace at once.”

  Helna was pale and as close to tears as Navarre had ever seen her. She paced nervously through her private apartments in the palace as she told the story to him.

  “It came in through my spy-web,” she said. “We were monitoring all calls from Kariad to Jorus, and they taped—this!”

  She held out a tape. Navarre stared at it. “Was it always standard practice to tape every call that goes through?”

  “Hardly. But I suspected, and—here! Listen to it!”

  She slipped the tape into a playback and activated the machine. The voice of an operator was heard, arranging a subspace call from Kariad to Jorus, collect.

  Then came the go-ahead. A voice Navarre recognized instantly as that of the Lyrellan Kausirn said, “Well? This call is expensive. Speak up!”

  “Kausirn? Carso here. I’m on Kariad. Got some news for you, Kausirn.”

  Navarre paled. Carso? Why was the half-breed calling Kausirn? Suspicion gnawed numbly at him as he listened to the unfolding conversation.

  “What do you have to tell me?” came the Lyrellan’s icy voice.

  “Two things! The location of Earth, and something else. The first will cost you twenty thousand units, the second thirty thousand.”